Project

Leeds Castle Website Design

Project

Leeds Castle Website Design

Client

Leeds Castle

Industry

Travel & Tourism

Services

A Castle Like No Other

Services

Leeds Castle is a beautiful treasure and attraction set in the heart of Kent, preserved and protected by its tireless charitable foundation for all to see, experience and enjoy. Leeds Castle’s story is unique and commemorates the incredible life of its more recent heir and owner, the extraordinary (and ellusive) Lady Baillie. Today, it allows its visitors to move past ‘medieval’ and immerse themselves in the golden era of the 1930s at a castle and grounds like no other.

The challenge of the brief was to create a digital platform that stepped away from the expectation of a traditional castle and into one that represented the style and times of Lady Baillie, all whilst retaining a clean and enticing user experience, powered by e-commerce. The new website aims to capture user engagement through a strategic UX foundation that combines a playful and immersive experience with a smooth path to purchase.

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The heartbeat

Step into the shoes of a powerful woman for a unique digital experience

Known as the “Castle of Queens”, Leeds Castle allowed us to convey a feminist message through a digital platform by focusing our design on the iconic women who have influenced the castle’s life and history, none more so than Lady Baillie.

The key to the success of our project was in the conversion of a print-based art deco look-and-feel into a contemporary digital experience whilst combining a user journey designed both to inspire and facilitate the booking process.

It was important to us to inspire a taste of the great Lady Baillie’s glamorous life and her guests’ enchanting experiences, allowing the audience to immerse themselves in an experience that mirrored the luxury and the excess of the 1930s’ decadent parties.

UX strategy

The strategy for the new website puts the user first and carefully leads to call-to-action. Thanks to the creation of user flows and journey mapping at the beginning of the project, we were able to create dynamic call-to-action adapted to each page to simplify online booking tickets on mobile and desktop, regardless of user need.

We didn’t view the audience as visitors but as guests. It changed the way we looked at the process and booking style of the platform. Whilst we didn’t want to ‘reinvent the wheel’ we certainly wanted the website to stand apart and treat its guests differently than any other castle.

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UI design

The adaptation of Leeds Castle’s visual identity for digital format had to respect accessibility, so we worked closely with the Leeds Castle team and partner agencies. We created a UI design system that not only complemented the new visual identity but evolved it.

We used differing colour palettes to showcase the different sections such as weddings, to set it apart from the rest of the website. The pages are adorned in small sets of art deco brand elements and motifs to help create a distinctive look-and-feel for Leeds Castle, to bring the identity to life.

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Results

The evolution of the Leeds Castle website has reinforced the brand proposition ‘spirit of place’, developed around the castle’s most influential and historical figure, Lady Olive Baillie. Leeds Castle’s new website, just like the destination itself, stands out from other more conventional tourism and attraction websites.

We are proud to have participated in developing the new platform, which has struck a balance between powerful graphic branding with user-friendly functionality, but more importantly to be able to work with a brand and destination that have reinvigorated the voice of its women, queens, ladies and leaders betrothed to its history.

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