Showcasing a Creative Home for Emerging Artists

+43%

Increase in organic new users

+36%

Academy page traffic increase

A reimagined digital experience brings Interlochen’s creative spirit to life.

When usability challenges and uninspired storytelling limited its digital presence, Interlochen Center for the Arts partnered with Carnegie to design an immersive, accessible website that reflects its vibrant community and inspires the next generation of artists.

The Challenge

Interlochen Center for the Arts is one of the nation’s premier boarding arts high schools and summer arts camps. But website usability tests showed visitors felt frustrated and uninspired. The website was hard to navigate, and the pages did little to highlight the center’s unique creative energy and close-knit community. Interlochen needed a new web strategy to tell its complete story.

Our Approach

The Carnegie web team conducted in-person discovery sessions and a site audit to understand the Interlochen spirit and learn the needs of the center. We redesigned the information architecture of Interlochen’s new homepage to help with usability. Carnegie also designed program finders to help prospective students and parents find the specific offerings they were looking for. We produced dynamic videos to help tell the Interlochen story from the student perspective. All the while, we made sure that the entire website was accessible to other audiences, such as concertgoers, benefactors, and alumni.

VIDEO + PHOTO CREATIVE PRODUCTION

To further showcase Interlochen as a home for emerging artists, the website needed dynamic videos to immerse visitors in the center’s creative environment and compelling student testimonies to inspire students to see themselves there. “A key aspect of what we like to do is tell the story from the student perspective,” Ben Bilow, Creative Director, said. “These are young kids, and we want them to tell their story. We took what we know about telling college student stories and found a way to do it in an appropriate way for high school-aged students.” Because of the pandemic, our team could not be on campus to direct videos or photography sessions. But Bilow and Director of Web Strategy Shannon Lanus gave creative direction, and the Interlochen team worked with three separate vendors to produce dozens of sizzle reels and student testimonials to tell the Interlochen story through multiple perspectives and every art discipline.

The Results

Usability scores after launch have also shown that visitors love the immersive homepage and its storytelling elements. Parents and students said the new website navigation made it easier to find relevant program information. Even though the site was launched roughly only six months ago, there has been a marked increase in organic new users this year versus last year. The Camp and Academy program pages saw a significant increase in page views, even considering the effects of the pandemic.

+43%

Increase in organic new users

+36%

Academy page traffic increase

+23%

Camp page traffic increase

Interlochen is full of joy, discovery, and a deeply-held belief that by exploring their creativity, young people learn to trust themselves. Regardless of the path ultimately pursued, developing creative confidence helps you learn to solve problems, navigate choices, and build successful, productive relationships. Nurturing creativity hones a core strength for us as humans, which our new site now conveys.

Katharine Laidlaw Vice President of Strategic Communications & Engagement Interlochen Center for the Arts