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Digitalmohawk

07 / HBO

What is on tonight, in two languages

A site for RED, HBO's Chinese-language movie channel in Asia. It is a television schedule before it is anything else, so the homepage answers what is on and when, and every film is named in English and Traditional Chinese together.

The brief

A subscription movie channel is watched, not browsed. Almost everyone arriving at the site wants one of two things: what is showing tonight, or what is on this week. The channel also plays to an audience across Asia reading in English and Chinese, often both, so every film title has to appear twice without the page turning into a list of duplicates.

What we built

  1. 01

    Tonight's schedule on the homepage with times against it, so the most common question is answered without a click

  2. 02

    A seven-day strip of the week, one highlight film a day, each with a still, a time and a line of synopsis

  3. 03

    Both languages together in every component rather than behind a language switch, so nobody has to pick one first

  4. 04

    Trailers and movie highlights as two tabs on the same panel, so the largest space on the page does two jobs

  5. 05

    Coming Soon and the Saturday double bill promoted apart from the daily schedule, because they are planned viewing rather than tonight's

  6. 06

    Subscribe kept in the top navigation, since the site cannot sell the film, only the channel that carries it

Screens

The RED homepage: navigation for Home, Movies, Schedule, Subscribe and Contact, a featured film with its English and Chinese titles, cast and director, and a Today on RED column listing five films by time.
Tonight's schedule sits beside the featured film. Every title is set in English and Chinese together, which every component has to make room for.
The Weekly Highlights strip: seven columns headed Monday to Sunday, each with a film still, its English and Chinese titles, a 9pm time and a one-line synopsis, above a Coming Soon row.
The week as seven columns. One film a day, a still, a time and a sentence, so a viewer can plan without opening a schedule page.

Outcomes

  • The question a channel viewer actually arrives with is answered above the fold

  • A whole week of programming is legible in one screen

  • English and Chinese titles sit together throughout, so neither audience is reading a translated site

Next project

A hotel that had to read in English and Chinese

Villa Howden

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