Case study

LED Boise

Design and build a new site for LED that puts their films and performances front and center.

When
2023
Length
2–3 months
Role
Designer and developer
Team
Myself, with LED's founders

Define

LED is a dance company and 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Boise, Idaho. Founded in 2015 by husband and wife Lauren Edson and Andrew Stensaas, they create original works that blend dance, music, and film.

They had a lot to announce: a new home space in Garden City, the return of their show Kid Lightning, and a growing catalog of films and performances. The site needed to hold all of it and still feel like LED.

Working directly with the founders, I took on the site design and build, with some input into the brand identity along the way.

Ideate

LED already had years of striking footage and photography, so the design gets out of the way and leads with it. The homepage opens on full-bleed black and white film with big, quiet type. The rest of the site keeps to black and white so the performance photography provides the color.

Smaller touches fill in the feeling: a soundtrack toggle in the corner, marquees of photography drifting past, and a chrome sculpture floating over their new building.

Build

I designed and built the site in Framer over a couple of months, reviewing along the way with Lauren and Andrew. Framer meant they were reacting to real motion instead of static mockups, and it left them with a site they could update themselves between seasons.

LED site hero — a black and white film still of two dancers over the line 'creating original, meaningful art that enriches the human experience'
The homepage opens on film. LED's dancers in silhouette behind the mission statement.
LED's Garden City building beneath a floating chrome sculpture on the homepage
The Garden City building with a chrome sculpture floating above it.
White section reading 'A disruptive force for creative experience' beside a marquee of performance photos
Performance photography drifting past in a marquee.

The site is organized around what LED needed the world to see: the featured work, their new space in Garden City, and what's upcoming. On the space page the building itself is the menu. Hover to one side and the doors open on the theater, hover to the other and the lounge lights up.

Featured work page — a grid of films and performances including RUIN and GREYHOUND
The featured work page: a short reel of films and performances.
'Our space' page mid-hover — the building's doors open to reveal the black-box theater under a purple sky
Hover one side of the building and the doors open onto the theater.
The same building with the lounge glowing warm through its open doors
Hover the other side and the lounge lights up.

Every show and film in LED's catalog got its own page with a full-bleed film hero, film-style credits, and press testimony. There are twenty-one of them, all reachable from the archive.

All work page — an archive grid of twenty-one LED shows and films
The archive of all twenty-one shows and films.
Collection page for RUIN — the film playing full-bleed above a strip of stills
Each collection page leads with the film itself. This one is RUIN.
Kid Lightning collection page with film-style credits and press testimony
Film-style credits and press testimony close out every show's page.

The deeper pages have the most personality. About introduces the three directors, and a wax seal on that page opens Our story: a scrapbook of polaroids from their first studio to their forever home. Even the donate page has hearts floating around the form.

About us page — a fanned stack of black and white performance photos
About us opens on a fanned stack of performance photos.
Directors section with portraits of Lauren Edson and Andrew Stensaas
Directors Lauren Edson and Andrew Stensaas.
Our story page — a scrapbook of hand-labeled polaroids from LED's first eight years
Our story: a polaroid scrapbook of LED's first eight years.

Results

The site launched at ledboise.com in 2023. It introduced LED's new space and handled the announcement and ticket sales for the return of Kid Lightning, touring Portland, Sun Valley, and Boise.

Upcoming page for Kid Lightning with tour dates in Portland, Sun Valley, and Boise
The Kid Lightning tour page with dates and tickets.

Lookback

What I liked

  • Letting the work lead. The site stays out of the way and the performance footage does the talking.
  • Working directly with the founders. Feedback went straight from the people making the work into the live site, with nothing lost in between.

What I learned

  • Designing for an arts organization is different from product work. The site is part of the show, and it earned the same care as a performance.
  • Running client work end to end in Framer: design, motion, build, and a handoff the client can maintain.

What I would do differently

  • Set up more of the content for self-serve updates. Tour dates, shows, and the space's status changed faster than anything else on the site.