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2026 · Web

Odessa Opera House

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Year
2026
Role
Art Direction
Type
Client
Discipline
UX/UI, web development
Team
Led art direction
Status
Live · Award-winning
Awards

Problem

The theatre’s site didn’t match the building and made tickets hard to buy.

Approach

I directed a full redesign that borrows the facade and rebuilds events around booking.

Outcome

A modern opera site recognised by Awwwards, CSS Design Awards, and Web Awards UA.

A landmark that needed a digital stage

Odessa Opera is not just a venue — it is one of the city’s main reasons to visit. The brief I took on was to give that reputation a website: something that felt like the building, worked on a phone, and made buying a ticket less of a chore.

I led art direction for the full product: information architecture, visual system, and the key page templates. The theatre’s sculptures became a recurring motif rather than decoration bolted on at the end. Repertoire and events were rebuilt around how people actually choose a night out, not around an internal org chart.

Design lived in Figma. Development shipped on WordPress. The project ran close to a year because the surface area was real — more than 110 designed screens — and because the brand of the theatre could not afford a “nice brochure” that failed at booking.

Three calls that shaped the site

  1. 01

    The facade as the visual system, not decoration

    Generic cultural photography would have made this any opera house. I used the building’s sculptures as a repeating motif so the site feels like Odessa Opera specifically — and so heritage work happens in the UI, not only in a history page.

  2. 02

    Events and repertoire rebuilt around booking

    The old structure followed the institution. I reversed it: choose a night, understand the piece, buy a ticket. The page templates exist to get someone into a seat, not to explain the org chart.

  3. 03

    Ship the full surface in Figma, then WordPress

    More than 110 screens and 50 templates meant the visual language had to hold before development started. Figma was the source of truth; WordPress was the delivery system the theatre could keep using.

What I designed

The system balances heritage and use: dark, architectural photography, custom illustrated statues drawn from the facade, and a clearer path from “what’s on” to a ticket. Mobile was not an afterthought — the theatre’s audience lives on phones. Awards followed the work, not the other way around.

What I’d do differently

  • I would have locked the ticket flow as an MVP and designed the remaining templates against a live booking path — a year of screens is expensive if checkout is still moving.

  • I would have specified the mobile repertoire view first. That’s where most of the audience actually decides.

FAQs

I led art direction for the full digital product: information architecture, visual system, and more than 110 screens — so the site feels like the building and makes tickets easier to buy.
The facade’s sculptures are a repeating visual motif, not decoration bolted on. Generic cultural photography would have made this any opera house; the building makes it Odessa Opera.
It was recognised by Awwwards, CSS Design Awards, and Web Awards UA after the redesign shipped on WordPress.
I would have locked the ticket flow as an MVP and designed remaining templates against a live booking path — a year of screens is expensive if checkout is still moving.

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