St. John’s Cathedral is the flagship church of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. When they came to me with a need for a new website, they were using a Wix site with an outdated look and feel and had no real content strategy. As a church with a highly visible online presence, it was important for a new website to reflect institutional credibility while also delivering large amounts of information to multiple audiences in a clear way.
Given the church’s unique architecture and history, there was also an opportunity to develop a striking visual design that evoked the physical space itself.
The first step toward accomplishing these goals was to rethink content organization. We identified multiple types of users, from church members to the wider arts community, who would need a guided experience to different content areas with different calls to action. To that end, we developed special landing pages that acted as gateways to related content areas, such as visiting the church, getting involved, or learning about its art and architectural history.
With this solid content base in place, I began forming a visual style to match the Cathedral’s striking multi-sensory presence. Visiting the physical space provided the basis for color palettes and typography, and other design details were tailored to fit the church’s high Anglo-Catholic identity, recalling the grand cathedrals of England.
