Capstone Case Study

Porchfest Rebrand and Website Re-design

Project Date: Spring 2026

Course: JRMC 7012

Role: UX & Editorial Designer, Marketing

Project Overview: Historic Athens Porchfest is a local, one-day music festival where front porches become stages across Athens neighborhoods. Our team redesigned the festival’s digital experience to help attendees easily discover performances, plan their day, and feel easily connected to event information.

The Problem: Porchfest is a beloved Athens event, but its digital experience doesn’t reflect the efficiency desired in order for attendees to plan their day. Though our research, we found that users struggle to navigate information and build a personalized plan for the festival.

New attendees in particular lacked guidance, especially when it comes to navigating the different neighborhoods, how to prioritize performances, and finding logistical event information like parking and general accessibility. Returning attendees also wanted quicker ways to access schedules and updates.

Additionally, while Porchfest is rooted in history and local culture, the existing website felt purely functional and didn’t parallel the artistic nature of the event. It lacked the warmth and personality that defines the in-person experience.

The Solution:

Research — In order to begin our redesign, we began by interviewing attendees to find real user behaviors. We conduced both informal, zoom interviews to better understand the current usability of the website as well as in person interviews during the event to gauge the day-of planning process. From our target audiences (Athens locals, UGA students, families, and out of town visitors), we learned that attendees prioritize speed and efficiency.

Our user testing reinforced a lot of our early assumptions while also highlighting new opportunities. Quantitatively, users were able to complete key tasks, like finding performers or understanding where to start more, quickly with our redesigned structure. Qualitatively, we heard consistent feedback around clarity and confidence. One user shared, “I like the structure a lot, I just think the design of the overall website could definitely be more captivating.” Another said, “I feel like some of the essential event information is hard to find. Eventually I see most of it under the FAQ’s tabs, but for event information I wish it was a little more upfront.” These insights helped us refine the overall navigation of the site as well as focus on making the branding a paralell to what Historic Athens Porchfest emulates.

From our research, we defined the experience strategy.

Building the design system pushed us to think beyond just this project and toward long-term brand consistency. We created reusable components/logos, clear content patterns, and guidelines for voice and tone that make it easier to scale the site in the future. One of the biggest takeaways was how closely content and design need to work together. Structure and language all play a role in how usable something feels; the stronger the consistency throughout all components of the digital experience, the stronger the brand.

Competitive Advantage: Not only are there existing Porchfest music festivals in various cities, there are also many massive music festivals in Athens as well. As we researched other music festivals to gauge how they were being digitally marketed, we found that many either overwhelm users with dense schedules or rely too heavily on social media for discovery. This helped us position Porchfest differently by focusing on clarity, mobile usability, and a stronger sense of place/narrative that Historic Athens brings to the table. Instead of just listing information, we leaned into creating a more guided and narrative-driven experience that reflects what makes Porchfest unique.

Major Developments and Pivots: Across the capstone courses, our project evolved quite a bit. In earlier phases, we focused more on organizing information, but as we moved through research and testing, we shifted toward designing a more guided and flexible experience. One of our biggest pivots was moving away from a schedule-heavy approach to something that supports browsing and real-time decision-making. We initally wanted to create a personalized quiz for attendees to plan their day based on their personal interests as many expressed during user testing that they don’t typically know where to start when the festival comes around. Instead of creating the quiz, we developed extensive organization and filtering systems when it comes to searching the different artists/neighborhoods/times. We also refined our audience focus, as the majority of attendees are locals and families.

I worked as the UX & Editorial Designer and Marketing Lead on this project, focusing on how Porchfest’s personality shows up across the digital experience. A big part of my role was developing the site’s voice and tone, figuring out how something that feels so local and community-driven in person could translate onto a digital platform. I worked through navigation labels, headings, and general text to make sure everything felt clear, approachable, and reflective of the event, rather than overly formal or generic. I also collaborated closely with the UX side of the team to make sure content and structure worked together. This also helps create consistency across social and promotional materials so that Porchfest feels recognizable and cohesive at every touchpoint.

Results: By the end of our capstone project, our team produced a cohesive, research-driven redesign that better reflects how people actually experience Porchfest both online and in person. We moved from a scattered, information-heavy site to a more intuitive structure that supports planning, and real-time navigation, especially on mobile. Our final prototypes demonstrate clearer user pathways, improved content hierarchy, and a stronger sense of voice that makes the experience feel more like Porchfest and less like a static event page. We built a flexible design system and content framework that Historic Athens can continue to use and expand over time. This project reinforced how much clarity, tone, and structure shape user experience, and showed that small editorial decisions can have a big impact on how confident and connected users feel.