The latest episode, up front
The first screen says what the show is in one line and puts the newest episode beside it, ready to play, with links to Spotify, Apple Podcasts and RSS.com. The player only loads when someone presses play.
- Client
- A book club podcast hosted by Lili Duquette
- Made
- Website
- Status
- Live
The brief
Alchemist’s Book Coven is a monthly book club podcast for readers of every genre. Its site needed to feel like the show, a little gothic and a little funny, and make the next step obvious, whether that’s hearing the latest episode or picking up this month’s book.
What it does
A reading calendar
Every month’s pick, past and coming up, with links to each edition: paperback, hardback, Kindle and Audible. A past pick links to the episode that discussed it.
Built for the phone people listen on
On a phone the buttons go full width, the menu folds into one button, and the episode card follows straight after the introduction.
The design
We read the book. We argue about it.
Cozy mysteries, gothic horror, fantasy doorstoppers. No gatekeeping, just good talk.
- Night #150f19
- Vellum #efe3c8
- Gold #d4ae4a
- Verdigris #6fa38f
- Point of view
- An alchemist’s study at night: vellum on deep purple, gold for the things to press, and an old printing face for the headlines.
- Motion
- A brass seal turns behind the first screen, one revolution every four minutes. It stops for anyone who has reduced motion turned on.
How it was checked
- About 13 KB of page and script, compressed, before the cover images.
- A strict content security policy, so the page can only load what it names.
- The podcast player runs in a sandbox: it can play episodes but can’t send the page anywhere else.
- Each cover image carries a fingerprint in its name, so a changed cover never shows stale.
- Deploys use the project’s own pinned copy of the hosting tool, never whatever happens to be installed.