Actor profiles that balance aesthetics and content

The existing profiles didn't give media the weight it needed. Each profile had two sides to serve.

Casting professionals and agents judge an actor in seconds. They needed the media first, then a fast way to reach credits in a category, such as film or theatre, favourite an actor, or open the profile in their casting system, on mobile as much as desktop.

Actors needed to be shown at their best, whether they had a full media library or a single headshot. The profile also had a business job: it had to make actors want one of their own, so every profile doubled as a reason to join Filmmakers.

The brief was clear:

• “Profiles must be beautiful and a delight to scroll through.”
• “Images and media need to shine.”
• “The design must work for both high- and low-content users.”

I worked from years of feedback from casting directors, assistants and actors at Spotlight, and from Filmmakers' own usage data and feedback from users. Both pointed the same way: media first, with credits and key information close by. Competitor platforms mostly gave media the same weight as text, or less.

I wanted a cinematic, editorial look that nodded to the film industry and set the profiles apart from every other actor site. On desktop, big images with bold type did that. On mobile, which the brief said mattered as much, it didn't translate.

But casting professionals still needed their navigation, and navigation dropped on top of a cinematic layout felt jarring.

To allow for a fast build I was required to use Bootstrap's components with minor customisation. But I was concerned I would lose the bespoke cinematic visuals. So I used the Bootstrap framework, but with distinctive branding, and kept to clean UI that avoided adding any unnecessary elements. The cinematic, high profile look came from layout, image treatment and type, not from custom components.

I put a sticky navigation bar under the main images, videos and agency info. The actor's imagery leads, and once you scroll past it the navigation stays with you. The trade-off was that navigation isn't the first thing you see. I chose that because first impressions were the point of the profile, for casting directors and for actors deciding whether to join. The bar is there the moment you need it.

I worked with the lead engineer to understand what automatic image framing could do, then specced how it should behave across image sizes and orientations, on desktop and mobile. It also shaped parts of the cinematic layout, because we could control the behaviour of each image.