The challenge
Suzanne Gay is a jazz pianist, vocalist and composer on Salt Spring Island. Her work comes from several directions at once: live shows, recordings, piano lessons, and bookings for weddings, memorials and private parties. Each of those is a different visitor looking for a different thing, and the site had to serve all of them without turning into one long list.
What I built
The design direction was “Midnight on Salt Spring”: the island’s fog and dark cedar crossed with the low light of a jazz club. Charcoal and deep greens, antique gold, and slow animation that suits the music.
The homepage covers who she is, her recordings with video, her upcoming shows, and her lessons, with the rates and what her students say about them.
Performances have their own page, laid out by format (solo, duo, trio or full band) and by occasion, with weddings, memorials and private events each explained before the booking section.
A “Stay in touch” signup feeds her own EmailOctopus mailing list, so the people who want to hear about shows end up on a list she owns.
The result
The site was done in three weeks, and I have kept it current since. In August I updated her lesson rates and wrote her a short studio handbook for running lesson bookings and her waitlist herself each September.
“Owen was wonderful to work with, efficient, quick responses, met me in person so I knew he wasn’t a robot ;) as well as affordable.”
— Suzanne Gay, Suzanne Gay Music