Bringing the competition and the vibes to life

Goal: To design and develop an interactive competition website for the Canadian Ballroom Extravaganza (CBX), featuring the work of queer and trans filmmakers across Canada. The design needed to highlight the categories and teams, providing users with easy access to each performance and a seamless experience for live voting.

As the lead developer and designer, I collaborated closely with producers to understand the project's tight timeline and content requirements. The goal was to bring each category to life with vibrant colours, bold imagery, and interactive features that celebrated the performers and filmmakers involved. Each category had to feature a lead video, while individual team sections showcased their entries in high-quality media.

Design Strategy

The design for CBX focused on vivid, category-specific themes, with each section using bright, dynamic colour schemes to bring out the individuality of the teams and their work. The categories, such as Face, Runway, Vogue, Bizarre, and Sex Siren, were defined with unique colour treatments and visual identifiers, helping users navigate easily through the competition.

The interactive elements, such as the voting buttons and the ability to share specific teams' work via social media, helped increase engagement and allowed teams to amplify their content in real-time. This was especially crucial during the live competition, where users were directed to a third-party voting system without disrupting their overall experience on the site.

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Category Breakdown & User Experience

Each category was designed to have a lead video that would anchor the page, showcasing the essence of the performances. Users could then explore individual team sections, where they could watch team entries, review performance highlights, and even read more about the filmmakers and performers. The sharing capabilities were a key feature, allowing social amplification for each team rather than the entire site, driving personalized engagement.

The clear segmentation between categories ensured that users were immersed in a specific experience, whether they were watching Team Brava's Face performance or cheering on Team 27.7 in Runway. Every detail was crafted to maximize accessibility and viewer retention.

Color & Typography

The bold text and vibrant colours assigned to each category created a cohesive visual identity, ensuring that viewers were instantly drawn to the content. Modern sans-serif fonts gave a clean, sleek, and contemporary feel to the platform, making the content easily digestible while keeping the focus on the videos and performances.

For the voting experience, minimal yet strong design elements were used to create call-to-actions that were intuitive, simple to use, and non-intrusive, all while maintaining a sense of urgency during the live competition. This experience was also designed in a thoughtful way - to allow our producers to access the CMS and make updates to the site as often as needed, swapping out imagery or closing voting when the deadlines reached.

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Reflection

The Canadian Ballroom Extravaganza project was a challenging yet fulfilling experience where I blended high-energy design with a seamless user experience to honour the performances and art showcased. Managing the complexities of live voting, social sharing, and immersive storytelling, this project exemplified my ability to work under tight deadlines while maintaining high-quality design and development standards.

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