Bluecadet Interactive

Once the unhappy home to such notorious criminals as Willie Sutton and Al Capone, Eastern State Penitentiary currently operates as a National Historic Museum. The prison is now one of the most popular cultural attractions in Philadelphia.

Eastern State wanted a web site that would pay homage to its long and storied past, but also to keep the public aware of its ongoing programming and activities. To deeply understand ESP’s needs, we undertook a thorough discovery phase. We interviewed key stakeholders and perused years of content, including thousands of images. From there we designed and developed a robust and scalable Drupal site, integrating flickr feeds, a shopping cart and a custom multi-user blog.

As more and more people accessed the site, it became popular with tourists and out-of-town visitors. As part of our continued partnership with ESP, we proposed a mobile-specific site to serve that target audience.

The mobile site detects device types and formats its view to fit the user's browser. Importantly, the mobile site is fully administrable through the main site's content management system, allowing Eastern State staff to update, change and remove content at will through the Drupal back end.

Press & Awards

Webby Awards

"The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet." The Eastern State Penitentiary was nominated in the Tourism category.

Communication Arts Webpick of the Week, 2010

“Tourists and potential visitors can find information quickly and easily thanks to an information architecture divided into five clear and distinct categories (Visit, Explore, Learn, Support, Shop, Contact) for targeted browsing. Visitors can book tours online, purchase merchandise, and register for events; they can also learn about the colorful history of the prison and learn about ESP’s most popular event, Terror Behind the Walls—one of the country’s most renowned haunted houses. “