Responses by Jonathan Morin, designer and founder, Jomor Design.

Background: This site was a self-initiated passion project designed with two different audiences in mind: people who enjoy a well-crafted website and people who enjoy good, heavy-hitting rock music. Coming from a nostalgic place, the intent was to pay tribute to a band who I feel never received its deserved recognition. I wanted to create a stunning experience with a compelling story so that other likeminded rock enthusiasts could stumble upon Priestess. It was my way to pay tribute to this remarkable band, bring them out of the shadows a bit and thank them for what they’ve put out into the world. I also did this project to have fun and get some creative fulfillment out of it—so, you know, mission accomplished.

Design core: First, this project would have never seen the light of day if it wasn’t for all those who did a lot of the legwork. I want to say thank you to the interviewers and photographers who did their thing back when Priestess was still going. You can check out the Disclaimer & Credits page to find out who they are.

Second, there’s a lot going on with this site that gets me excited, both from a technical and a conceptual standpoint, to be honest. I feel like the main story page that includes the timeline is just a joy to scroll through. If you’re into learning about the band and reading the content, there’s a lot to get out of it. The R.I.P. section of that page gives us a nice taste of symbolism with the tombstone image frame, while making the point that their music will live on forever.

Above everything else, the most awesome part of this project to me has to be the vinyl-cover-art scrolling effect on the Hello Master album page. The idea of parallax scrolling with multiple layers giving depth to an image or section is nothing new, but I just think the way it’s presented, along with the spinning vinyl, is impeccable.

Challenges: Finding content to fill up the site. The band hasn’t been around for a long time now, and it’s not like they got huge enough at any point that the internet is overflowing with articles, images and videos of their music. I spent a lot of hours on research before moving onto the design side of things. I also had to work from a small selection of images—often with poor resolution—which was a challenge in and of itself. I then had to find a way to make everything as presentable and compelling as possible. I designed accordingly, hoping to captivate and educate everyone visiting the site.

New lessons: For the overall look and feel, I wanted something that felt vintage yet modern because this is how I view their music. I wanted this site to be an extension of that, which is why you can find a tasty combination of typography styles, textures and interactions. I had a great time experimenting and coming up with creative ways to use those.

Navigation structure: It was important to me to begin the journey with the mysterious premise that this great band simply faded away one day, a band who seemed destined to reach high levels. There’s no tangible closure to be had with them—even though, like all their fans, I’d love to know what happened. It makes for a fascinating story. Naturally, I wanted to create a storytelling scrolling experience, but I also wanted to divide everything in a few pages to make the navigation a bit more accessible—like if it was a band’s official website.

Technology: I used Adobe XD for my original designs and then worked in Webflow for development and interaction design. I’m always looking to push the limits of what Webflow has to offer and see what cool new things I can come up with. For a creative, original project like this one, the exploration process happens pretty much everywhere at once. Static mockups, prototyping, visual development, QA and user testing end up all blending together—for me, at least.