Content Marketing & Web Design Lessons from HBO's Westworld | Must Design | Scoop.it

Web Design Lessons from Westworld

This Curagami post shares Five Content Marketing Lessons from HBO's Westworld such as:

  • Show Don't Tell
  • Tease Never Bore
  • Beauty is half the Battle
  • Believe and MOVE
  • Create Another Loop


http://www.curagami.com/content-marketing-five-lessons-from-hbo-westworld/ 

Lessons don't end there. HBO's Westworld uses design in ways web developers and designers should steal including: 

  • Design should speak to and deepen your story lines
  • There is not half measures in design, all in or nothing
  • Create space around your designs, don't overwhelm
  • A few little things done very well often work better than many things done poorly

 

Design & Web Stories

Websites must tell stories, stories consistent with and supporting brands represented. Look at the examples in our YouTube video (https://youtu.be/IC4KHAIZKWM ) and particularly REI.com for ways to blend your brand's message and site design. 

No Half Measures

You either believe in your designs, copy, website and brand or you don't. There are no half measures online. Half measures are like fear. Visitors can smell fear and know when they are being manipulated. Every webpage is s statement and you either believe in what you are doing or you don't. See the Red Bull example in the video for the impact BELIEF can have on marketing and movement creation. 

Space
Great Designs need SPACE to breathe. White space may be the most important part of web design few think about. In our rush to crowd everything in we violate HBO's brilliant use of space, time and an unhurried process. HBO isn't trying to overwhelm or flood us into submission.

 

HBO would rather create one incomplete thread after another and leave them and us hanging. Space is confidence. When you're confident in your product, brand or site you do what you believe and learn from every interaction. When you keep throwing things at customers hoping they will comply, they never do btw, your marketing looks chaotic and confusing. Confused customers do many things buying and advocating are rarely among them. 

Brilliant Little Things
Have you noticed how DARK the Westworld lab is? If you're wondering why Westworld's titles are so amazing look no further than the dark lab. Creating the CGI needed to have a cool lab is expensive. Better to create a great title sequence and leave the lab a little seedy and rundown since doing so saves money and helps the plot. 

Websites can't look "seedy" so much these days, but they can do a few things brilliantly and let the credit spread. When asked how teams I've managed made over $30M in online sales I often explain it was what we DIDN'T do that mattered most. 

The list of things we needed to do was always infinite, so we were strict in the very few things we did and could do. HBO proves the point. Spending millions on the lab would rob the show of it's seedy underbelly. Better to create a great title sequence with a few brilliant pieces like the robot dipper and the "world overview" than try and do it all. 

Find our Content Marketing tips from Westworld on Curagami: