School of American Ballet
Role: Designer @ Great Believer
Team: Founder, Art Director
Timeline: 2019
The School of American Ballet (SAB) is the preeminent ballet school in the US. Despite the school’s prestigious reputation, SAB’s digital presence fell short of conveying their identity and lacked clear paths for their key audiences to get to the information they needed. I led the UX strategy, information architecture, and visual design for one of two final website concepts for SAB.
objectives
The existing site wasn’t responsive across devices.
The existing site housed a lot of content, but without a consideration of visual hierarchy, since it was built on two templates. This discouraged content writers from keeping the site updated.
The existing brand (ie. pastel colors, “traditional” ballet typeface) reinforced the stereotype that ballet is a gentle, “frilly” practice.
How might we allow the right users efficiently find the right information they need?
How might we give SAB the confidence to update the content on their site with ease?
How might we showcase the essence and prestige of SAB's dynamic approach to ballet education?
outcomes
A flexible web template, consolidating 40 pages of information into 8 page templates with consistent visual hierarchy.
A new identity system (handed to us by another design agency), fully integrated on the web.
A stark, bold visual approach to showcasing SAB’s prestige.
Synthesized navigation that allows the right user personas to access the information they need.
“Our new site presents SAB with authenticity, inviting visitors to experience the power of our programs.” – Carrie W. Hinrichs, Executive Director
discovery
kicking it off
In our all-day kickoff workshop with SAB, we explored the organization's identity through the Brand Deck exercise. Understanding the nuances of SAB’s reputation and how they wanted to identify themselves was the key to our visual approach.
understanding who needs what
One of the major requests from the client was a way to segment their key users at the get-go, on the landing page and within the navigation.
As a student, I want to see what skills are needed from the program I'm in, so I can best prepare for my audition.
As a supporter, I want to understand the impact of SAB, so I can make an informed decision on how to give to SAB.
As a ballet-enthusiast, I want to learn more about SAB, see what events and performances are happening, so I can plan to participate accordingly.
Unfortunately, our agency didn’t have the resources to do full UX Research to support these statements. We collaborated with the client as we could, trusting the Executive Director understood the needs of the organization, but made assumptions about our users without full research.
co-designing a strategy for web templates
The wireframes and site map take a collaborative approach between our team and the client – diving into content strategy and suggestions by key stakeholders. We took a modular approach for the sections of each page template, fitting over 40 webpages into eight basic templates. This minimized the need to design each piece of content and maximized the client's power to edit, rearrange, and duplicate each component based on the type of content.
The design concept integrates SAB’s photography, new brand identity, and dynamic layout of content. Scrolling through the homepage allows for storytelling, gradually revealing the “behind the scenes” and the nature of SAB’s work.
The result is a visual-first approach that emphasizes the rigor, craft, and reputation SAB’s identity, while still segmenting the information appropriate for each user: student, supporter, ballet enthusiast.
Between the two presented concepts (this being the more “out there” approach), we met somewhere in the middle, pulling back slightly to more traditional tiers of content (to avoid the feelings of radical or experimental under the NOT pile of the brand deck).
See it live → sab.org.
Role: Designer @ Great Believer
Team: Founder, Art Director
Timeline: 2019
The School of American Ballet (SAB) is the preeminent ballet school in the US. Despite the school’s prestigious reputation, SAB’s digital presence fell short of conveying their identity and lacked clear paths for their key audiences to get to the information they needed. I led the UX strategy, information architecture, and visual design for one of two final website concepts for SAB.
objectives
The existing site wasn’t responsive across devices.
The existing site housed a lot of content, but without a consideration of visual hierarchy, since it was built on two templates. This discouraged content writers from keeping the site updated.
The existing brand (ie. pastel colors, “traditional” ballet typeface) reinforced the stereotype that ballet is a gentle, “frilly” practice.
How might we allow the right users efficiently find the right information they need?
How might we give SAB the confidence to update the content on their site with ease?
How might we showcase the essence and prestige of SAB's dynamic approach to ballet education?
outcomes
A flexible web template, consolidating 40 pages of information into 8 page templates with consistent visual hierarchy.
A new identity system (handed to us by another design agency), fully integrated on the web.
A stark, bold visual approach to showcasing SAB’s prestige.
Synthesized navigation that allows the right user personas to access the information they need.
“Our new site presents SAB with authenticity, inviting visitors to experience the power of our programs.” – Carrie W. Hinrichs, Executive Director
discovery
kicking it off
In our all-day kickoff workshop with SAB, we explored the organization's identity through the Brand Deck exercise. Understanding the nuances of SAB’s reputation and how they wanted to identify themselves was the key to our visual approach.
understanding who needs what
One of the major requests from the client was a way to segment their key users at the get-go, on the landing page and within the navigation.
As a student, I want to see what skills are needed from the program I'm in, so I can best prepare for my audition.
As a supporter, I want to understand the impact of SAB, so I can make an informed decision on how to give to SAB.
As a ballet-enthusiast, I want to learn more about SAB, see what events and performances are happening, so I can plan to participate accordingly.
Unfortunately, our agency didn’t have the resources to do full UX Research to support these statements. We collaborated with the client as we could, trusting the Executive Director understood the needs of the organization, but made assumptions about our users without full research.
co-designing a strategy for web templates
The wireframes and site map take a collaborative approach between our team and the client – diving into content strategy and suggestions by key stakeholders. We took a modular approach for the sections of each page template, fitting over 40 webpages into eight basic templates. This minimized the need to design each piece of content and maximized the client's power to edit, rearrange, and duplicate each component based on the type of content.
The design concept integrates SAB’s photography, new brand identity, and dynamic layout of content. Scrolling through the homepage allows for storytelling, gradually revealing the “behind the scenes” and the nature of SAB’s work.
The result is a visual-first approach that emphasizes the rigor, craft, and reputation SAB’s identity, while still segmenting the information appropriate for each user: student, supporter, ballet enthusiast.
Between the two presented concepts (this being the more “out there” approach), we met somewhere in the middle, pulling back slightly to more traditional tiers of content (to avoid the feelings of radical or experimental under the NOT pile of the brand deck).
See it live → sab.org.
Role: Designer @ Great Believer
Team: Founder, Art Director
Timeline: 2019
The School of American Ballet (SAB) is the preeminent ballet school in the US. Despite the school’s prestigious reputation, SAB’s digital presence fell short of conveying their identity and lacked clear paths for their key audiences to get to the information they needed. I led the UX strategy, information architecture, and visual design for one of two final website concepts for SAB.
objectives
The existing site wasn’t responsive across devices.
The existing site housed a lot of content, but without a consideration of visual hierarchy, since it was built on two templates. This discouraged content writers from keeping the site updated.
The existing brand (ie. pastel colors, “traditional” ballet typeface) reinforced the stereotype that ballet is a gentle, “frilly” practice.
How might we allow the right users efficiently find the right information they need?
How might we give SAB the confidence to update the content on their site with ease?
How might we showcase the essence and prestige of SAB's dynamic approach to ballet education?
outcomes
A flexible web template, consolidating 40 pages of information into 8 page templates with consistent visual hierarchy.
A new identity system (handed to us by another design agency), fully integrated on the web.
A stark, bold visual approach to showcasing SAB’s prestige.
Synthesized navigation that allows the right user personas to access the information they need.
“Our new site presents SAB with authenticity, inviting visitors to experience the power of our programs.” – Carrie W. Hinrichs, Executive Director
discovery
kicking it off
In our all-day kickoff workshop with SAB, we explored the organization's identity through the Brand Deck exercise. Understanding the nuances of SAB’s reputation and how they wanted to identify themselves was the key to our visual approach.
understanding who needs what
One of the major requests from the client was a way to segment their key users at the get-go, on the landing page and within the navigation.
As a student, I want to see what skills are needed from the program I'm in, so I can best prepare for my audition.
As a supporter, I want to understand the impact of SAB, so I can make an informed decision on how to give to SAB.
As a ballet-enthusiast, I want to learn more about SAB, see what events and performances are happening, so I can plan to participate accordingly.
Unfortunately, our agency didn’t have the resources to do full UX Research to support these statements. We collaborated with the client as we could, trusting the Executive Director understood the needs of the organization, but made assumptions about our users without full research.
co-designing a strategy for web templates
The wireframes and site map take a collaborative approach between our team and the client – diving into content strategy and suggestions by key stakeholders. We took a modular approach for the sections of each page template, fitting over 40 webpages into eight basic templates. This minimized the need to design each piece of content and maximized the client's power to edit, rearrange, and duplicate each component based on the type of content.
The design concept integrates SAB’s photography, new brand identity, and dynamic layout of content. Scrolling through the homepage allows for storytelling, gradually revealing the “behind the scenes” and the nature of SAB’s work.
The result is a visual-first approach that emphasizes the rigor, craft, and reputation SAB’s identity, while still segmenting the information appropriate for each user: student, supporter, ballet enthusiast.
Between the two presented concepts (this being the more “out there” approach), we met somewhere in the middle, pulling back slightly to more traditional tiers of content (to avoid the feelings of radical or experimental under the NOT pile of the brand deck).
See it live → sab.org.