A Tour of The Pink Line Project's Stunning New Website: The Ultimate DC Arts Calendar and Blog
I'm a big fan of Philippa Hughes's Weekly Arty Picks. She never fails to make me think, laugh, or consider a new DC space. Her non-profit--The Pink Line Project--constantly finds creative ways to bridge interdisciplinary themes and personalities in the area, centered around art events and design happenings.
The Pink Line's website redesign is one of the best examples of an interactive calendar I've seen for art-related events, from a design and technology standpoint.
The Design
Content first: the best way to get to an idea. The overall look/feel: clean, playful, professional, flexible. Plenty of white space lets the event content and images take center stage.
Philippa's web team definitely took time to think about what we may want from an arts calendar. You can browse events by date, neighborhood and event type. This is great! I've always wanted a way to filter events by neighborhood, for instance--something conventional blog posts cannot do easily.
You will notice that there is hardly any pink on the site, an intentional design choice that I applaud. The subtle, crisp color palette serves a valuable purpose: to showcase photos and art without the clashing of colors, the overuse of widgets, and other busyness the eye doesn't need.
The Technology
The new site is built using one of the best open-source Content Management Systems on the web: Drupal. The CMS will allow Philippa and her staff to easily add content to the calendar and blog sections. We are also able to browse through events without having to wait for page reloads. The website follows current best practices in web development: it degrades super nicely (as a Drupal site should), and the AJAX scripting motivates user interaction while remaining unobtrusive.
Sharing
The Pink Line gets social with sharing features: send an event to a friend, or share via social networks like Facebook and StumbleUpon. Being able to tweet about an event from the event details pane would be a nice addition for a future release.
Pink Line Recommends
While the site focuses on highlighting DC art events and creative venues, it never loses its identity as a key player in the community. From upcoming Pink Line projects, to recommended Pink Line picks, we will not feel out of the loop.
What You Should Do Next
You can still keep up with Philippa's personal blog, but definitely add The Pink Line's website to your bookmarks for the ultimate fix. Sign up to receive her e-mails. Submit an upcoming art event. Smile at the fact that you no longer have to look very far to see what's hot in the DC art and creative worlds.
