Showbizz.net

MediaWeb designBrand identity
Celebrity news lives on its photos. So the site gives them the whole width, and gets out of the way.
  • 4sections, each with its own colour and icon: TV, movies, stars and shows
  • 2pages to wireframe in the brief. The site launched with a home, section hubs, articles, topic files and search.
  • 2014beta opened to readers on November 27, then improved through early 2015
A new entertainment news site, in a market where everyone already has one. It had to look like nothing else on day one.

Showbizz.net was born at Média Happy Geeks, the publisher of Branchez-vous and Cinoche.com, and Cinoche's journalists wrote its first stories. It covers Québec and Hollywood: television, movies, stars and shows. The references were Variety, E! and BuzzFeed, in French and with a Québec voice.

At Libéo, I designed its brand and its first website, from the sketches to every template, then worked with the newsroom and the developers until the beta opened in November 2014 and through the improvements that followed.

Name and brand. Summer 2013: the kickoff and the brand identity of a new entertainment site.
A simple brief. May 2014: start as a simple blog on WordPress, with a few article types and a gallery.
Sketch and wireframe. June 2014: research, first sketches and wireframes with Libéo's team.
Design every page. August 2014: the home, the hubs, the article and its timeline, the sponsor skin and mobile.
Beta, then better. November 27, 2014: the beta opens. Galleries, a Top 10 and finer details follow.

Where Showbizz is today

Showbizz.net is still online and publishes every day. BIZZ Média now runs it, alongside Cinoche.com, Quijouequi.com and Cineac.ca. The site has a newer design and focuses on TV, series and Québec stars. Details from showbizz.net.

Curious to know more?

The full story, with the screens and the workshop details, is best told in person. Book 30 minutes with me to talk about it.

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The brand and the first website of Showbizz.net: four colour-coded sections, photos at full width, topic files with a timeline and a sponsor skin, from a two-page brief to a beta in November 2014.

Credits

Brand identity and web design
Jean-Sébastien Daigle · Libéo
Client
Showbizz.net, Média Happy Geeks