Role
Design & Creative Lead
Type
Ecommerce website
Industry
Entertainment
Madame Tussauds: Reimagining ‘Famous Fun’ as a digital identity
TL;DR
This global redesign aimed to modernise the brand's digital identity, support international teams, and create an experience that matched the energy of the attractions. The result was a visually rich, performance-optimised site supported by a CMS that made regional content faster to publish and easier to manage.
Who is Madame Tussauds?
Madame Tussauds is one of the world’s most recognisable entertainment brands, known for its life-like wax figures of celebrities, world leaders, athletes and cultural icons. Founded in London in the 1800s, it has grown into a global attraction with locations across Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
The brand is part of Merlin Entertainments, one of the largest attraction operators in the world. Known for its mix of spectacle, celebrity and immersive storytelling, Madame Tussauds draws millions of visitors each year across its global locations.
My role
As Design and Creative Lead on the global website redesign, I handled everything from creative direction to UI design. Working with a small team of three developers, we quickly built a tight-knit relationship with the Merlin marketing team who had clear goals but trusted us with the creative approach.
Taking the 'Famous Fun' brand, I rethought how it could shine online while working across different countries and devices. The project moved quickly, and I enjoyed the fast pace and the strong collaborative involvement from the client.
Problem statement
The existing website was visually outdated and technically limited. Madame Tussauds needed a responsive, CMS-powered platform that could support multiple territories, languages and character sets, while expressing the brand's 'Famous Fun' identity in a way that felt immersive and accessible.
The new experience had to support regional content, work seamlessly across devices, and maintain visual consistency without limiting local flexibility. The core challenge was translating the glamour and theatricality of the physical attraction into a digital experience that could adapt to different formats, audiences and content teams.
Design process
Ideation
When the brief expanded into a more ambitious creative direction, I took the opportunity to explore how the vibrant 'Famous Fun' brand could translate effectively online. Mood boards, colour studies and typography tests helped define a tone that felt dramatic and distinctive, but unmistakably Madame Tussauds.
Our project room quickly became a creative laboratory where my team of developers and I could move from concept to code in hours rather than days. Rather than perfecting static mock-ups, we tested design ideas directly in the browser, immediately seeing how our choices affected performance and user experience.
This pragmatic approach led to several innovative solutions, including a lightweight CSS-based image masking technique that preserved the brand's theatrical framing without requiring pre-edited assets
Madame Tussauds various concepts at different stages.
Madame Tussauds colour, typography, photography mood boards.
Visual design
Once the creative direction was approved, I moved into defining a visual system that could deliver consistent brand expression across content types, devices and territories.
Mobile behaviour was a central focus, preserving the richness and theatricality of the desktop experience across all screen sizes. The system also had to support multilingual content and regional flexibility, with typography that accommodated multiple character sets and content modules that responded fluidly to different formats.
Results
Final design
The final system delivered a responsive, globally adaptable identity that captured the brand's energy while supporting regional content creation. Templates were modular, allowing local teams to manage their own content without compromising consistency.
CSS animations, dynamic masking and gradient treatments enhanced richness without sacrificing speed or accessibility. The design system integrated seamlessly into the CMS, with the front-end handling positioning and styling automatically that publishing stayed simple for content editors.
Impact
The completed website dramatically improved Madame Tussauds' digital performance:
Mobile revenue almost doubled after the redesign
20% increase in visits across devices driven by stronger engagement
Regional teams gained confidence in their online presence, and the system's flexibility allowed for quick responses to new figure launches and seasonal campaigns.
The new site finally gave Madame Tussauds a way to show up online with the same energy and spectacle as its attractions.
