What they wanted

Listen Up! is a web-based youth media network that aims to connect young video producers and filmmakers with resources, technology, funding, and audiences. When Listen Up! came to us, the community building features on their website had to be manually updated by staff, which was a time-consuming process that resulted in the site expanding in fits and spurts rather than in real-time with the network. As young people, and especially teenagers, are a fickle demographic with innumerable online options at their fingertips, Listen Up! needed a stronger, more relevant brand image, and a cohesive website that could keep pace with their intelligent and ever-evolving member base.

What they got

More than two years later, Listen Up!'s website is still operating with our original design and technology platform. As the organization continues to expand, they now sponsor competitions, such as its Very Important Producers Awards, through the website, have developed an innovative partnership with Adobe, and were awarded one of broadcasting's highest honors, the George Foster Peabody Award, for a series of short documentaries entitled Beyond Borders: Personal Stories from a Small Planet.

Hide this text

What we did

On the design side:

• Created a global branding system
• Designed an updated logo
• Redesigned every existing page of the website
• Overhauled listenup.org's information architecture
• Authored a style guide for additional page and package design

On the tech side:

• Configured a standalone server to handle complex image conversion and significant site traffic
• Developed a flexible delivery and storage system for video and other media
• Integrated an automatic submission system to submit content nightly to the Internet Archive
• Created a comprehensive CMS with multi-tiered access control to facilitate site administration
• Migrated data from WordPress and other sources into a single MySQL database