I grew up around Listowel – it was our local market town and where I went to school. Even though I had moved away for years, I always remembered Listowel as an incredibly friendly, open and fun town. There was always something around the corner – a festival, event or celebration. Every bar had a unique character of its own and we all waited in high anticipation of the highlight of the year – the Listowel Races.
I was thrilled to find that not much had changed about Listowel when I moved back. It was still the open, welcoming and wonderful town of my youth. The overwhelming impression of Listowel is that of a town of characters and it was this unique selling point that we sought to highlight to build the brand and website around. The branding and design was done by the wonderfully talented, local designer Meave Queally of Some Studio Design. She created a vision and story that we all worked around.
This was a truly local collective coming together to create a window into a town we love. The words were written and curated by local copywriters Jeremy Murphy and Ally O’Neill, and photography was provided by Gabe Cassan. Our videographer was John Hyland from Real One Media, who also took much of the photography for the site. John went above and beyond the brief in art directing and creating the wonderful main promotional video and then also created the enchanting local stories short videos.
This project entailed moving from an older, unmaintained website to this new design and layout. We worked with the local Business Alliance to design the information architecture, to ensure that we kept the structure clean, clear and as easy to navigate as possible. This is a large site with in-depth information about all local businesses. We also wire-framed each page design, to ensure that we had the correct user experience specified.
The main feature of the site is the comprehensive directory of local businesses and events. We included an easy-to-navigate map, with clickable pin previews and a filter system. We also created individual designs for areas like the People of Listowel and Local Guides to Listowel. In keeping with the theme of the characters of Listowel, we wanted our visitor guides to be unique, written by the people who know Listowel best – the locals. If you are interested in fishing, running or architectural curiosities, we have a locally written guide to show you what to do and where to go.
This website was an absolute pleasure to be involved with and everyone is delighted with the end result.
