Drafthouse.com — Roger Erik Tinch

Drafthouse.com had to do more than sell tickets. For Alamo Drafthouse, the film is the reason everything else exists: the showtime, the seat, the food, the review, the whole night out. I led the redesign around that idea across 40+ locations.

What the redesign covered

The work connected the parts of the experience that had been treated as separate jobs.

End-to-end redesign: information architecture, visual design, and design system
Ticketing flow: location selection, showtime browsing, seat maps, food pre-ordering
Content system for film pages, reviews, and Drafthouse editorial

Film as the primary object, everything else in service

The organizing decision was simple: start with the movie, then let every practical decision gather around it.

Film pages carried showtimes, locations, editorial, and purchase paths in one place
Poster art was treated as first-class content, not a thumbnail
The design system was shared with the mobile app so both products felt like the same Drafthouse

Film page and showtime browsing: poster art as first-class content, not a thumbnail. Showtimes and locations collapse into the film's own page rather than forcing users to a separate browsing flow.

What shipped

The redesigned site launched across all 40+ Alamo Drafthouse locations, replacing a product that had been patched across multiple acquisitions and technical migrations. Structuring the site around film made editorial and ticketing feel like one product instead of two departments sharing a domain. The design system fed directly into the mobile app redesign, giving both products the same underlying language.