Work / Venue / Events

D:NA

Events, ticketing and identity for an artist-led space in Folkestone.

  • Identity
  • Web design
  • Ticketing
  • Build

ScopeIdentity, programme pages, a box office and an events editor.

ConstraintThe space has a character of its own, and the website had to carry it.

The D:NA homepage: an illuminated question mark hanging in a dark teal cloud of dust, the Dust: Narratives & Artefacts sign in marbled type to its left, and the line ‘Performance, workshops, art / research’ to its right.
The question mark is real geometry, lit from inside, rather than a picture of one.

D:NA — Dust: Narratives & Artefacts — runs performance, workshops, installations and research from 64 Tontine Street in Folkestone. A site for that has two jobs: say what the place is, then be useful about it. What’s on, who is behind it, how to find the door, how to book.

We built the programme out of material the space already had — rusted steel, torn posters, copper — and then made the ordinary parts work properly. The sign, the programme and the box office are the parts worth showing.

A sign you can push around

The identity is a question mark. As a flat graphic with a tilt baked in, it was an idea rather than an object, so we rebuilt it from the sign’s own artwork into geometry that is genuinely three-dimensional: lit from the inside, hanging in a slow cloud of dust, yours to drag, click or work with the keyboard.

That is a lot of scene to run, so it loads on the homepage and nowhere else, the dust can be paused, it stops when it scrolls out of view, and it steps aside entirely for anyone who has asked for less motion.

  • Design direction
  • Interaction
  • Content
  • Build

Letting the posters be posters

The programme began as small rust accents and a rebuilt poster that made a poor job of the artists’ names. The copper became the surround for the whole section instead, and the artwork the venue is sent now appears as whole posters, with descriptions rewritten out of staccato sales lines.

The hire card — “Your event here” — is deliberately not shaped like an event, and it goes to the enquiry form rather than opening an empty page. Nothing on the programme leads to a blank.

The ‘What’s on’ section: a copper-textured surround holding a row of event posters, a dark hire card labelled ‘Your event here’, and short descriptions underneath.
What’s on: the copper surround, supplied posters kept whole, and no empty event pages. The photograph in the corner is the space’s own archive.

An editor, and a box office

Ernst should be able to change the programme without learning what a byline is. He gets plain-language fields and one scheduling model — a single date, a run of dates, a weekly event, or dates to be confirmed — and the site works out which of its own formats to use, so nothing is typed twice. Up to five events can be picked and reordered for the homepage; a longer programme lives on the listing.

The cabaret seats twenty-five people, and it has to hold free, pay-what-you-can and supporter tickets at once. Reserving a separate block of supporter seats would have rationed generosity, so every ticket draws on the same capacity: supporting the space is simply another way to buy one.

The place looks like itself online, a stranger can find the door on a dark evening, and Ernst can change what’s on without us.

Client

D:NA — Dust: Narratives & Artefacts, 64 Tontine Street, Folkestone

What we did

Design direction, interaction, content, build

Built with

Hand-written HTML, CSS and JavaScript, Three.js for the sign, Sanity for the programme

Posters, photographs and the sign belong to D:NA and the artists.

Next: June Collier · All the work

Tell us what you’re making.

We’ll have a look first. Send a few lines: what the project is, what isn’t working, and anything you already have.

Get in touch