A clearer digital experience for attendees, makers and curious first-time visitors — keeping the brand's playful energy while making its content easy to navigate and act upon.
Maker Faire brings together creators, inventors, artists, educators and families through interactive, hands-on events. Its website has to serve people with very different goals — from discovering events and buying tickets to exhibiting projects or simply learning what Maker Faire is.
This conceptual redesign explored how the site could keep Maker Faire's energetic identity while making its content easier to navigate, understand and act upon.
The site held a wide range of events, projects, stories and participation opportunities, but the sheer volume made it hard to scan. Different users arrived with different questions:
…help different audiences quickly understand Maker Faire, discover relevant experiences and confidently take their next step?
The redesign was built around three primary needs:
An attendee hunting for tickets has a different goal from a maker applying to exhibit — the homepage had to acknowledge these paths early.
Not everyone knows what a Maker Faire is; a concise intro, strong imagery and project examples explain the experience quickly.
Dates, locations, schedules and ticketing deserve prominence and shouldn't compete with editorial or promotional content.
The bold, unconventional identity is preserved — but a disciplined grid and hierarchy prevent visual overload.
Maker Faire is about showing and making, not just attending — exhibit, volunteer and organise paths stay visible throughout.
Before any pixel, the redesign began with the fuzzy work — brainstorming what Maker Faire felt like, defining what success would look like, and pulling together a visual moodboard for the brand personality.
Prioritises planning info and shortens the path to ticketing.
Introduces requirements before asking users to start an application.
Supports visitors browsing for inspiration rather than planning a visit.
A restrained palette anchored around ginger red and cobalt blue, a single geometric sans, and a small kit of buttons, cards and icons — enough personality to feel like Maker Faire, structured enough to scale.
A strong hero introduces Maker Faire, then clear pathways to discover events, explore projects and participate — top actions get visual priority, stories sit lower.
A reusable card system for events, makers, projects, workshops and stories makes varied content scannable and scales across pages.
Event cards surface location, date and type before a user opens the full event page.
Find a Faire, Get Tickets and Become a Maker are visually differentiated so the next step is obvious.
Bold type, colour and imagery keep the personality; a structured grid and spacing add order without feeling corporate.
Modules reflow across screen sizes while preserving the same hierarchy and action priority.
Each screen was designed against the wireframe grid — hero, presentation, ticket booking, latest news, partners and footer stacked in a scannable rhythm. Sub-pages inherit the same modular blocks.
The prototype showed how users move between discovery, event planning and participation. Motion reinforced the brand character while keeping important actions predictable.
A conceptual redesign — presented as UX outcomes, with no production metrics claimed.