Background
We were delighted to receive a request from Jesus College to design a standalone website for their digital events hub, The Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub. Built in 2022, the space is one of Oxford’s most iconic contemporary event destinations. An interdisciplinary education, research and events space fitted with state-of-the-art technology to host a wide range of events from conversations around space travel and the cosmos to concerts and AI conferences. A page on the Jesus College Website didn’t allow for the freedom of marketing this incredible space to its maximum, so a standalone website was called for in order to convert visitors to the site to event attendees or event hosts.
Getting started
We started our development journey by meeting with the clients to understand their vision in person and then visiting the space. This in-person approach is important to us and very much forms the all-important early stages of our brief.
Our guided tour of the Digital Hub gave us a sense of the space and the architectural aspects that could influence the design. We captured the key areas by taking photographs - the main forum space, breakout rooms and of course the incredible view from the rooftop terrace!
After the tour, we talked through the project goals and brief with the client. We gained a clear understanding of the current pain points, target audiences, visual style and functional requirements. We quickly learned that the client was looking for a website that is truly unique from a style perspective to match the modernity of the space itself.
Solving pain points
The client was really struggling to promote events within the main college website. This is partly down to the site page structure not fitting with the content they wish to promote, but also from a navigational perspective. Events were lost within the myriad of pages that are typically found on a college website.
Our goal was to ensure that events can feature on their own in a way that suits the content the client wishes to promote, and framing this in a way that captivates a user. The primary goal was to convert visitors to the event pages into booked event attendees.
Audiences
The audience for event attendees is the academic community (students, researchers, academics), varying in age from 18+, looking for events to attend that are associated with specific academic or research interests that relate to them. They may also be looking to get in touch with the Digital Hub to host an event.
The other audience is the non-academic community (people interested in wider tech events) of a non-specific age range. Interested in technology, the digital world and engaging with events that cover these topics, this audience is keen to keep on top of the topics that interest them.
Our design solutions
As part of our research stage, we studied photography of the space, which led us to deduce that, besides the cutting-edge technology on offer, the strength of The Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub was its ultra-modern neutrality as a space, creating the perfect backdrop to the events it hosts. We wanted the website to feel the same.
Our design uses black & white shades as the backbone, layered with incredible photography of the venue to add impact. Leaning into the contemporary, cutting-edge feel of the physical space, we introduced movement to the site through animations. Every scroll has a subtle animation introducing the next piece of content, and every hover has a creative animation to symbolise that it can be clicked. All of these details add up to a design package that feels joyful to scroll and click through and a worthy representation of this incredible place.
Our technical solutions
In terms of the build, we selected Drupal as the site's CMS. If built well, Drupal is incredibly intuitive to use from an editing perspective for admins.
For the animations on scroll and hover, we used a JavaScript animation library called GSAP. This library allowed us to introduce high-performance and smooth animations to the site. It also closely matched the animations within the design, which made it perfect to use.
The outcome
This was a visually ambitious project which required an incredibly detailed development cycle to ensure that the designs were faithfully implemented. The result is a website that stands alone to promote the range of incredible events at the Digital Hub, along with the venue space. This, in turn, will increase the visibility of the events held there and will showcase the space to users for potential hire.