FSU College of Music
The Florida State University (FSU) College of Music is a nationally recognized music school with a proven record of excellence, with esteemed faculty and graduates who hold prominent positions in their respective careers. Looking to the future, the College of Music was striving to continue to elevate its position in the national and international music field, improve the quality and exposure of the programs it offers, increase donor support, strengthen a new bridge program to connect student degrees with the careers they pursue and stay competitive within comparable institutions.
•Overview
The College of Music website was redesigned to more accurately reflect a modern approach to musical training and the college’s brand story.
The College of Music sought to build on its longstanding, rich history as a school of music while being forward-looking and innovative in its approach to training future musicians.
Recent additions to the faculty, staff, program offerings and facility improvements demonstrated a strong commitment to their vision of becoming a leader in the music community.
Similarly, the updated website served as a foundational element in all messaging and marketing collateral to reflect a singular mission, vision and aesthetic approach in line with the elite caliber of the school.
Challenges
Outdated aesthetic | Misaligned target audience | Complex structure
•Challenges
Outdated aesthetic
The old College of Music website had been long overdue for an overhaul. Content had been continually added to the site over several years without adequate planning or foresight, leading to bloat, hidden pages and dead ends. Taproot worked with the college to streamline the content and structure of the site while also reducing the overly formal, academic approach, which resulted in an inviting experience that was reassuring rather than imposing.
A misaligned target audience
The previous College of Music website focused heavily on serving current students and faculty, but it failed to build its brand story and attract new audiences. Taproot worked with the college to help expand the website’s focus to prospective students, informing those audiences of the high quality of education at the school and, just as importantly, conveying a sense of place and purpose. Taproot used design, content and photographic imagery to illustrate the winsome day-to-day experience of student life at the college while showcasing a learning environment that is steeped in history yet unafraid of looking to the future.
Complex structure
The College of Music faced a notable challenge with its vast amounts of information for its many programs, faculty and events. Of particular concern was the lack of a clear user flow for students to find pertinent information for their degree programs. Taproot worked with the college to define navigable pathways that were delineated by either undergraduate or graduate programs of study. Additionally, Taproot used the structure of the interface design to visually usher students towards their destination, all but eliminating the previous site’s confusing tangle of wayward pages and near-endless links to information that may or may not otherwise have been connected to the journey’s origins.
Solutions
Modern interface, stunning imagery | Refocused target audience, unified structure
•Solutions
Modern interface, stunning imagery
The photographs featured throughout the new College of Music website emphasize authentic settings that depict the college’s teachers working with students in the classroom alongside instances of one-on-one lessons and small group collaborations. This rich texture of imagery and content helps tell the college’s story with emotion and meaning that is far more likely to connect with audiences than the rather sterile approach of the previous site.
Refocused target audience, unified structure
By expanding the target audience and streamlining the user experience to center around prospective students, the newly designed website encourages visitors to explore its offered programs with a genuine sense of what it would be like to pursue study at the college. A more unified structure allows for prospective students to easily understand the community that the college provides, while also highlighting the academic programs and community events the college has to offer.
Results
Unified | Authentic | Community
•Results
A top-tier website to support a world-renowned school of music.
Since its launch, the Florida State University College of Music has promoted its vast array of concerts and varied programs of study while living up to its already well-deserved national reputation.
Visitors are more easily able to find the information that is of most interest to them while envisioning themselves as active members of the school community, taking them one step closer to becoming one of the college’s cherished students.