Hi, I'm Sam.
I'm a web developer based in the East Midlands, UK.
I also production manage and lighting design for theatre and live events.
I make websites for the arts companies and individuals
This can be anything from a portfolio, to a fully-fledged online programme with links to ticketing systems, or something in between.
I love working with teams who are doing things they're excited about, and who can communicate openly and honestly about what they want. I'm happy to be creative in design, or work with a strict brief.
If that sounds like how you work, let's chat.
I'm experienced in the following tools and frameworks, and love learning new things, too:
- Jekyll
- Django
- Python
- Bootstrap
- Hugo
- Wordpress
- HTML5, CSS3, Javascript
- Object-oriented programming
- Git, GitHub and GitKraken
- macOS, Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows
- And a packet of bourbon biscuits, just to keep everything going.
ZOO Programme
Designer & Developer
Having worked with ZOO for their digital projects in 2021, they returned to me to create their online digital programme for in-person performances for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022.
The site was designed to reflect the design of their previous printed brochures, which were not produced this year as part of their environmental efforts. The brief was a clean, easy to browse programme, with the cool style ZOO is known for. Alongside this, responsive filtering was incorporated so that users across all devices could find shows just for them with ease and minimal waiting times. The site received great acclaim in Edinburgh across both ZOO and the wider Fringe.
ZOOTV
Designer & Developer
ZOOTV debuted as part of ZOO Venues’ shift to online content for the 2020 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Following the completion of BIDF TV in June, ZOO contracted me to rebuild last year’s site using the BIDF structure and architecture.
ZOOTV hosts a mixture of live and on-demand content, all of which is behind an InPlayer paywall. ZOO also sells some of its tickets via the EdFringe ticket portal, so it was essential we were able to build in direct access to those customers who already held tickets.
Timed builds allow for events to disappear once they have finished their run, and allows the ZOO staff to focus on the in-person programme they’re running simultaneously in 2021.
Sightlines Festival
Designer & Developer
Sightlines Festival is a new, online, performance and wellbeing festival that premiered in July 2021. They were looking for a site that showcased their events, editorials, and team, while linking through to a 3rd-party ticketing platform.
Jekyll was the perfect choice for this, while using GitHub Actions to schedule nightly builds and refresh the event listings to remove the previous day’s programme. I worked alongside their graphic designer to be in-keeping with the colourful scheme with bold lines to create an adaptive, modern design.
BIDF TV
Designer & Developer
Birmingham International Dance Festival was held online in 2021, for the first time in its history. BIDF worked with Zoo Venues, having premiered their online festival - Zoo TV - in lieu of the in-person Edinburgh Festival in 2020.
Zoo then reached out to me to rebuild their Squarespace site into a bespoke solution. Using Jekyll with Bootstrap ensured the design was slick and easy to use, and adding Forestry meant it was painless for the editing team to update during the festival. All the events are stored throughout the festival, and the site is rebuilt at 15-minute intervals to ensure the right events are available at the right time.
Valentina Star Dreamer
Designer & Developer
Valentina Star Dreamer is a new digital show for families by Haste Theatre & Mouths of Lions Theatre. They were looking for a companion website, to share information about Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space) and provide some further engagement for audiences.
I designed and developed an information hub, as well as an interactive ‘code-breaker’ game, to engage children and their families alike, incorporating the style and visuals from their poster design.
Codamotion Ltd
Developer
Codamotion approached me to transfer their self-described broken Wordpress website, where the plugins had stopped working, to a Django offering. I redesigned their database structure to be in line with their business needs, streamlining data entry, and rebuilt the design in Bootstrap from scratch.
The result is cleaner code that is easier to maintain, using modern tools, while maintaining the same look and feel as their original.
Anegada Theatre
Developer
Anegada Theatre is an emerging theatre company based in the East Midlands. They were looking for a small website to be able to solidify their brand’s online presence. Working with their designs, I built a static site hitting all their criteria, and leaving scope for more features such as a blog and production archive.
Phone Box Theatre
Lead Developer
Phone Box Theatre is an independent theatre company based out of Nottingham. They make new shows focusing on themes of connection and isolation with stylised technical designs.
It is built with Forestry so the team can update the copy, and built to scale so that when they make shows more pages can be add turning this single-page site into a fully-fledged portfolio.
Sam Osborne - Web Portfolio
Lead Developer
That’s this very website you’re looking at! I’ve included it for completeness, and it’s a great example of a one-page portfolio. It focuses on the key projects and is fully mobile-responsive, using a simple two-column format of displaying the content. Using YAML within the projects, it’s possible to quickly and easily specify what gets included and ensure consistent formatting.
Jess Donn
Lead Developer
Jess Donn is a theatre maker and producer based across Manchester and Nottingham. I designed and built their portfolio using Jekyll and Bootstrap to show off their various projects, and integrated it with Forestry so Jess can update the content whenever needed.
The Nottingham New Theatre Festival Reports
Lead Developer
The Nottingham New Theatre’s summer arts festival - StuFF - previously used a shared Google Doc to display performing companies’ technical requirements. This was great for centralising the info, but poor for quickly finding content, especially from a mobile device.
This website, built using Django, is able to record and display technical requirements for changeovers, as well as allow staff to input technical and front of house reporting. It integrates with the existing ticketing platform to serve as an initial portal for front of house staff, while allowing technical staff to work independently to see what’s needed for the changeovers.
I created and developed the project, as well as acted as technical support throughout the 2019 festival - the first festival it was used.
The Nottingham New Theatre Website
Lead Developer
The Nottingham New Theatre ran a Wordpress installation, which we reworked in 2019 to turn it into a Jekyll site. The redesign is cleaner and reduced the number of pages from dozens to 10, 8 of which are top-level pages. This increased the ease of finding key information, and put booking tickets at the front-level.
The design is responsive, and formalises the theatre’s brand identity across its web platforms, a number of which I’ve been involved in the development of. Here, I led the design and development process, including integration with the ticketing platform via a JSON API, and the writing of the copy.
The Nottingham New Theatre Training
Lead Developer
The Company Technical Director of The Nottingham New Theatre is responsible for, amongst other things, training technical crews of the theatre. I took on this role in 2017, and up to that point the theatre’s training records was a binder of paper training records. This made updating the training scheme and ensuring consistent training incredibly difficult, and meant that members couldn’t easily view their own training progress.
I designed and built an online training platform to display the training scheme, allow members to view their own individual profiles, and include training ‘sessions’ where multiple training items are signed off in one go. This has meant viewing who’s trained in what, and by whom, is now easier than ever, and has since extended beyond the technical department to workshop, stage, and costume/make-up.
The Nottingham New Theatre Ticketing
Developer
The Nottingham New Theatre uses a bespoke ticketing platform to market shows, sell tickets, and collate sales reports over time. It uses Django and integrates with the public website with an API on the audience frontend, with a Materialize UI designed for front of house staff use on the backend.
I have developed features for the platform including displaying content warnings, adding draft event support, advancing the use of the website for the theatre’s summer festival, and increasing the amount of information available to audiences at the point of reserving tickets.
The Nottingham New Theatre History Project
Editor
The Nottingham New Theatre History Project is an archive of the theatre from 1945 to the present day. The archive includes shows, people, committees and just about anything that’s happened under the roof of the theatre.
It uses Jekyll and static files instead of a database, increasing load times and security of the site. It integrates with Smugmug to display images and other media throughout the website, reducing bloat of the repository.
My role includes adding new shows and people to the site, as well as developing the templates to add new features, such as reviews, awards, and displaying a visual plan of which seats have dedication plaques on them.
TEC PA & Lighting
Editor
TEC PA & Lighting is the University of Nottingham’s student-run live events and hire service. In 2016, the website was redesigned to be mobile-responsive and appear more contemporary in its layouts. I assisted with writing the copy and developing the design with the development team.
