Website: http://www.SoundArtLA.org
Client: Sound Art; Los Angeles, California.

Fun, energizing, exciting, encouraging: everything 180 hopes for in a new client is what we found in Catherine Goldwyn and her entire team at SoundArt!

So our ultimate goal with the new SoundArtLa.org website was to simply reflect their vibrant personality and passion for training and building up inner city Los Angeles youth.

The experience we envisioned for SoundArt’s website is unique because their organization is unique. They teach rock music to inner city kids, by classically trained musicians!

As Catherine explained to us, the same values in teaching violin and piano at a young age apply to any instrument - so why not use a medium that kids can get excited about? Their kids look forward to lessons, and when they have the instruments - they practice at home too!

So we felt the best way to direct the site visitors is a linear “storyboard” walk through to explain to visitors the Why, What, and How of SoundArt. First you see the Our Vision page for the quick “Why,” then on to the Programs for more “What” and then to Instructors for “How.”

There is still a full navigation at the top for the more traditional “choose your own adventure” way of navigating. But our user testing has shown us that most users really do follow the storyboard for at least 2-4 clicks before moving to something that piqued their interest.

All images are their real kids, the entrance page included. And all the fun page transitions and drop downs are still deep-linked; you can hit the back button or refresh the page without jumping back to the beginning.

We also had custom written content for each page’s main descriptions, and the initial 5 blog entries.

Add in a slick Mobile version and the fact that the main site is even optimized for old IE6 browsers, the SoundArt site bridges the gap between the young and the mature.  Amazingly, SoundArt does this very thing between the at risk youth of Los Angeles and professional musicians.  We are honored to have worked with them!

So please check it out: http://www.soundartla.org, and be sure to come back to comment!