Amsterdam Red Light District 2.0
The future of window prostitution in Amsterdam. My Red Light will make history as the first Dutch sex workers collective where sex workers have joined forces and are renting out the rooms independently. Our challenge was to create a brand and online platform that needed to be playful and inviting, professional but approachable.
- Art Direction
- Research & Analysis
- Brand Naming
- Branding & Identity
- UX/UI/IA
- Wire-framing & Prototyping
- Frontend Development
- Craft CMS Implementation
On a mission
We joined forces with My Red Light & HVO Querido in preparation of the start of their new enterprise. Our goal, designing the most beautiful site in the industry (not that hard). We designed all UX and UI for the web app, as well everything related to the brand, landing pages, and marketing.
Some of the early design explorations
Finding inspiration and the right mood
Branding & Logo
We wanted to give My Red Light a human touch, so we designed the logo to with feminine curves and personality. We created a uniquely ‘living’ logo by giving the logo an ability to express emotions by changing it’s color with hover interactions on the website. The logo interacts with you and creates a special bond between the user and My Red Light.
- Try interacting with the logo in the page hero. Just hover over it!
The power of typography
Sexy. Elegant. Modern. Bold. Strong. Typography holds great weight within a design and can be a powerful way to communicate your identity.
The Process
Focus on strategy, UI/UX design
Understanding the usage contexts of the platform helped me develop a clear vision of the tonal expectations of our users. To communicate the personality of the website to our client and ourselves, we developed a set of experience principles.
The experience principles
- Powerful and sexy (not pornographic like the industry)
- Bring warmth and approachability to the design
- Create a sense of togetherness
- Delight, surprise & energize
- Playful and fun
Delight, surprise and energize
Feel and tone
The experience principles were then used to sense‐check design decisions, articulate core values and describe key attributes the experience should uphold for both the users and the brand. The principles were used constantly to drive the aesthetic, feel and overall tonal direction of the project.
Modern web techniques
4 buildings, 14 windows
Using the latest WebGL techniques, we build a custom mapbox map with fly to location animations based on scroll position.
We’re coming!
The new company, identity and project was launched in september 2016. In the presence of the Amsterdam mayor Van der Laan, the venture philanthropy fund Start Foundation, Rabobank and HVO-Querido, My Red Light (aka Eigen Raam) recently addressed this major leap towards independence.
The Impact
A good start… And it’s still day one
It’s still early days for the service, yet the results have exceeded our expectations. The entire process was fast and experimental. We moved quickly from user research through wireframes, design and development to an MVP and prototype. While the project is still in development, we’re working continuously with the team to design all aspects of the service until it’s ready to open in may 2017.
