Situated in the East London district of Wapping, Tobacco Dock is a Grade I listed warehouse dating back to the early 1800s. Since its reinvention to a premier events venue their website needed to be redesigned to reflect and showcase the quality of its facilities.

1 week        22%

full ROI on website                increase in total number of enquiries

Modernising one of London’s most historical venues.

Following a mammoth renovation in 2012, Tobacco Dock firmly established itself as one of the premier events venues in East London. Since then its growth has exploded, not only hosting events but housing office spaces and a rooftop bar.

Due to the business evolution, their existing website no longer reflected their services and needed to be reimagined to encompass and showcase their unique offering.

Careful UX planning and meticulous content structuring.

One of the biggest challenges when approaching this web project was marrying the various offered services into one. Working closely with the client, the UX team utilised existing user data to design and prototype a streamlined concept idea which split the services into three distinct branches.

Following user testing and validation the site’s visual style was designed inline with Tobacco Dock’s signature bold branding.

Designing an intuitive, usable web platform for a heritage venue.

Building a future proof, high capacity events platform.

From a technical aspect, it was of utmost importance that the site remained performant under considerable load. Looking at existing traffic data, it was common that the site would experience a heavy load around event release dates.

The technical and development team were tasked to build a robust platform and bespoke server host, coupled with a CDN to cope with any spikes in load.

Refreshing the visual style in line with the existing brand

- Modular card system UI

• From existing visitor data, it was found that mobile devices were a large traffic driver to site, prompting the shift to a mobile-friendly card based system user interface.

• - Quality of life detailing
• Throughout the site, it was important to invest time on information design and small quality of life details which would keep the user on the site rather than looking elsewhere.

• - Interactive floorplans
• Integrated directly into the site was a series of interactive floorplans to highlight and showcase the variety of spaces within the venue.

"Strafe has been fantastic to work with. They have approached the website redesign project very thoroughly, taking time to understand our business,  challenges and objectives. Each step of the project made me feel more comfortable and happy with my agency choice. No question was left unanswered, and the team made complex technical and design queries easy to understand."

- Karolina Chmielarska, Marketing Manager - Tobacco Dock