Context
The design and build approach prioritised reduction, clarity and structural consistency. Every interface decision was evaluated against the question of whether it supported the work or distracted from it. The resulting site uses a simple visual language, neutral typography and a limited colour palette, creating a quiet framework in which the artwork and accompanying texts are given space to breathe.
A key challenge was accommodating extensive bilingual contextual writing without resorting to overlays or pop-up interfaces, which the artist explicitly wished to avoid. This was resolved through a vertically scrolling page structure in which imagery sits on one side of the layout and text on the other. French and English translations are distinguished through subtle variations in dark grey tones, allowing both languages to coexist clearly without visual competition.
The site was built using a content management system to support a large and evolving catalogue of work. While the overall structure remains consistent, the system allows for significant variation in content types, including still images, video, text-heavy projects and projects with minimal contextual material.
FatCat Records is a UK independent records label that originally began in 1989 as a record store specialising in Detroit techno and Chicago house music. The store closed down in 1997, and the record label was born in its place. The label's output reaches into many styles with notable artists including Sigur Rós, Animal Collective, Frightened Rabbit and Vashti Bunyan. In 2001, the 130701 modern classical imprint was set up and gained pioneering status initially with the Set Fire to Flames album Sings Reign Rebuilder, before signing the now genre-defining pianist/composers Sylvain Chauveau, Max Richter and Hauschka.
Design Overview
With an extensive catalogue of releases across multiple sub-labels and imprints spanning over 30 years, and rosters of artists both past and present, the brief was to design and build a website capable of functioning both as an active, contemporary label platform and as a comprehensive archive. With balancing clarity of navigation and usability central to the overall approach, the site is hierarchically structured to present audiences with new releases, recent news and current artist activity, whilst providing clear entry points for audiences to explore archived material. Long-term maintainability is addressed by client-accessible content management systems which underpin the entire site. Back catalogues, artist rosters, archive sections and news articles are all database-driven, allowing the FatCat team to create, update and publish content internally while maintaining aesthetic consistency across the platform.
FatCat Records — 130701 Ltd
Website Design & Development UX / UI
CMS (content management system) Development
Asset Creation.
Album cover photograph by Yusaku Aoki.
Campaign videography by Rinko Tsukamoto.
The home page is designed to foreground current activity on the label while providing clear entry points into the wider archive. It brings together recent releases, the latest news and a roster of artists currently active on FatCat, all populated dynamically from the CMS databases.
The hero section features a carousel showcasing video content from recent releases, with direct links to streaming platforms and purchase multi-links. By drawing content directly from the underlying databases, updates made elsewhere on the site are automatically reflected on the homepage, ensuring it remains current without additional manual input.
With the 130701 imprint forming a major part of the FatCat label, it was important to separate the 130701 section while maintaining visual and structural harmony with the wider site. While the majority of the FatCat website uses a light visual treatment, the 130701 pages adopt a darker aesthetic that aligns with the imprint’s established identity.
A dedicated pre-loader featuring an animated 130701 logo marks the transition into this section, clearly signalling to users that they are entering the 130701 imprint environment. Despite this visual distinction, the section is fully integrated within the same CMS architecture, allowing releases, artists and news to be managed centrally while presented within a clearly defined imprint context.
The Artist Profile Archive forms the core reference section of the site, containing profiles for both past and present artists who have released music through FatCat. Artists are organised by label or imprint and by their status as active or alumni, allowing users to explore the catalogue in a structured and intuitive way.
Each artist profile aggregates biography, discography and external links to streaming platforms and social channels. Given the scale of the catalogue, artist data is stored within a central CMS database and rendered using a self-propagating page template. This approach ensures consistency across profiles, reduces duplication and allows the archive to expand over time without requiring structural changes to the site.
The News Archive was designed to support both casual browsing and more focused reading. Articles can be filtered by category and by label. From individual article pages, users can navigate to their previous archive overview or move forwards and backwards through articles in chronological order. All content is managed via a CMS database, enabling ongoing publishing by multiple contributors.
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