This project was for Don Mischer Productions, an event and program production company, as well as their partner boutique creative event agency company, Don Mischer Experiential. One of my larger projects, this one has been ongoing for over two years since the latter half of 2021. They initially reached out to in need of a complete rework of their current website, as it lacked any sort of features beyond a brief description of their company and a contact email address. Initially, the project was solely for DM Production, but upon the finalization and launch of the site, they asked me to create a website for their DM Experiential side of production as well. Their main wants were a Home page that displayed a montage highlighting the myriad events they've put on over the years, an About page that gave faces to the names of the people who have worked on said projects, a News page for when they were featured in any articles, and a Works page they could use to easily show off to potential clients. Though they had a large folder of assets for me to work with (mainly screenshots and videos of the events they've put on), the overall layout and presentation of the site was up to me. That said, they had an extensive branding kit to work with, so I wanted to make sure it matched their pre-existing branding identity. Additionally, they had developers of their own that wanted to work on the project alongside me, so I would be working on a small team for the majority of this project.

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When beginning the research phase of the initial website planning, I spent a lot of time figuring out what sort of users would come to the site, as well as what sort of user flow I wanted them to experience. In essence, what was the end goal for people they brought to the site? Though DM Productions as helped put on several well-known events like the Academy Awards and the Emmy Awards, I don't believe that the average person would be interested in looking up the production company behind such events. Rather, the individuals going on to this site would almost be entirely potential clients looking for a production company to help assist with their own events. Therefore, I focused my research, and later design, on what these potential clients would want to see immediately upon visiting the site, as well as how to easily navigate the site to find more information on specifics or how to contact them. One of the key focuses in this regard was highlighting their massive portfolio, making sure to emphasize not only the large events they've put on, but also showcase the various kinds of events they've put on as well as the vast amount of time and experience they have in this field.

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I worked closely with the other members of the team whilst conceptualizing the website, making sure that these individuals who have worked closely with the team liked the general direction the website was headed. Specifically, we spent a lot of time deciding how to best showcase their portfolio, utilizing their massive amount of videos and photos of said events. While the rest of the team would work on deciding what photos and videos they wanted to display, I would spend time wiremapping and designing the general flow of the website, with the end result of us working together to design how to best display the assets they've chosen on the website design I created. Near the website's initial launch, they also had me work with the team to design a similar website for DM Experiential, as their relatively new branch of their company lacked an independent website completely. We wanted to make sure we made this second site relatively consistent with the one we had just finished (in terms of branding, image placement, flow, etc.), but also wanted it to be distinct enough such that users would know the difference between the two sides of the company and knew what website they were on immediately. This resulted in two Home pages that, while similar in design, have completely different texts, images, and videos showcasing the different events they put on. Additionally, the DM Production website would have a flow emphasizing the goal of contacting them as a potential client, while DM Experiential's website flow would be more focused on showcasing the team behind the event production and what works they each individual helped on.

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As for the launch of both of these websites, I worked with the team closely to make sure that all concerns and issues were addressed before anything was put online for the world to see. We had several meetings to hold quality assurance testing, making sure that both the potential clients that visit the site as well as those that were actually a part of DMP & DME found it easy to navigate and understand the different pages. Overall, this project had one of the longest development periods of any other projects I've worked on in the past. Even after the initial launch, the team would reach out to me for additional changes, such as when they would want to highlight a different event, or if they recieved an award they wanted to showcase. Reflecting back on the project as a whole now, I'm very happy to see how it's turned out, and I still continue to work closely with the team to occasionaly update the website. Though working with a team can be rough as times, as it somtimes seems to slow down development and I'm more used to work independantly on these sort of projects, it was a great change of pace and learning experience to see what the other team members had to bring to the table. I'm very thankful to DMP & DME for giving me the opportunity to work with their team, as well as help build them their website years ago and continue to help update it even now.