Unpredictable Porridge
March 2007
www.unpredictableporridge.com
Unpredictable Porridge was a Universal Music project designed to utilise a tool we had built for the A&R processing of artist demos sent into the various music labels owned by Universal. The difference with this site is that is was publicly accessible, and encouraged music writers and bands to upload their music, where the public could visit, listen to and vote for their favourites. A celebrity reviewer would be periodically be trawling through the site selecting their top-5 and writing a featured review. Any bands deemed to be popular or selected by the reviewer would be investigated by universal for potential signings.
The project was run by William Ravenscroft - one of John Peel’s sons. It was designed as a tribute to his late father and his life’s work. In essence, this site would carry on the mantle of discovering and promoting new music and unsigned artists, and help to lift them into the limelight.
The style of the design I developed was based around a white-label record, with the navigation formed as if track listings on the label. The record texture subtly sits behind the content for the site, and provides a relevant non-genre specific music reference to give it a raw and edgy feel throughout. I intentionally kept the colour scheme limited to provide maximum contrast and capture the raw essence of the music that would be uploaded into the site.
A community discussion forum was developed around the site to allow listeners and bands to discuss what they thought of each of the artist, and to promote live performances.
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