A GASTRONOMIC FESTIVAL FOR THE MASSES
Each year in March, food and wine lovers flock to Victoria's laneways, rooftops and regional destinations for the annual Melbourne Food & Wine Festival.
This globally recognised event attracts participation from locally and internationally renowned chefs and winemakers. Even as the plates from the twenty-day festival are cleared away, a calendar of year-round events is served up, showcasing the best seasonal produce, food markets and restaurants that Victoria has to offer.
With our studio full of foodies and wine lovers, Flint was chuffed when first engaged by the non-profit in 2009. Flint ticked all the boxes with a strong demonstration of similar work in our folio. Our initial engagement laid the foundation for a digital partnership that’s still going strong.
“ Our goal was to create beautiful AND flexible digital properties, future-proofed by their ability to be reinvented each year, in line with the Festival creative. ”
Flint’s method is a feast of many courses, moving from Discovery and Planning to Prototyping, followed by Design. Our approach with MFW started at a top level, journeying towards the functional details. These laid the foundation for a solution that encompassed a digital strategy and roadmap, features, tools, channels and platform choices.
With inputs from our team of digital specialists, all the highlights and needed functionalities were then rolled out in workable forms. We continue to follow through our detailed process with on-going support and guidance for Melbourne Food and Wine, raising the benchmark each year.
Our discovery process brought together key stakeholders and helped us uncover the site’s visual, content and administrative requirements.
Sharing a table, mainly through workshops, everyone involved including the MFW decision makers, project team and our specialists collaborated to devise well-considered solutions. Together, we also mapped out potential problems and highlights.
We churned through the butcher's paper, marinating ideas as we cooked up a grand vision for MFW’s operational, creative and functional requirements. We considered easy access of information for users and improvements in efficiencies for the MFW team.
Interactive and clickable wireframes were designed to lay the user experience model out on the table. Based on feedback from the MFW team and our specialists, changes were incorporated to better reflect the broader vision.
These low-fi prototypes allowed for easy testing and refinement. This step was undertaken as another way to ensure the proper representation of vision and functionality. It facilitated the efficient use of resources before commencement of the design stage.
The scalability of our solutions have allowed for the annual creative reinvention of Melbourne Food and Wine's digital assets. These looks act as a fresh garnish to the site, in keeping with the overarching Festival creative.
The design aspect of our work directly impacts user experience and helps deliver an integrated campaign for MFW. So far, our MFW work has expanded across digital assets such as the website, Facebook, eDM's and other digital marketing activities.
Multiple target audiences were catered to through the solution, including event attendees, volunteers, organisers and the media. Delivering content to satisfy the palates of all users was a key challenge in designing the information architecture.
With the growth of technology in mind, we create sound, supported and scalable solutions. We supplied the MFW team with systems that were easy to use and platforms that could be easily grown, changed or adapted with each year’s success.
MFW organises hundreds of events throughout the year. Flint’s solution handles complex event submissions, assessments, refinements and payments. For users, it serves a seamless experience, while for the MFW team, it automates event listings.
Leading up to the festival, communication is dished up through flexible content modules on the website. We've empowered MFW with a custom CMS to help keep the content fresh and lively all year round; incorporating blog feeds, event information and videos.
Each year, the release of Festival tickets prompts a frenzy of activity from food and wine lovers around the globe.
With its unique set of content and events, we’ve designed the site to handle the convergence of high traffic, while effectively showcasing this prestigious series.
MFW’s website provides a hearty portion of both metro and regional event content. We've designed the site to encourage local, interstate and overseas food lovers to savour these events.
Presented as a partnership between MFW and Tourism Victoria, we serve these up as online destination guides.
Event screens allow users to access detail on dates, times, venues and ticketing.
