We remember the old OAE website going live, in fact it was designed by an alumni of the Cog team.

It was bold, original and felt very daring. But a decade on the site was no longer fit for purpose and needed replacing.

We met with their senior team and convened an audience-focused workshop at our studio. We learned about the orchestra’s commitment to playing early instruments but being anything but stuffy in how they did it.

It was clear that their musical rigour and experimental attitude is what keeps audiences interested, so that became our mantra: a site that challenged the preconceptions of classical in the ways that OAE do.

We also got a real sense of the value of data, especially to their development team. They’d recently begun selling their own tickets, through the Southbank Centre’s Tessitura consortium, so we knew that a seamless integration of that system was going to be vital.

Exploring language early helped set the tone and translate the Discovery work into the Design stage. We took the approach to use active language, which might not usually be seen in relation to a traditional orchestra.

We adopted the inclusive language of ‘See us live’ and ‘Watch and listen’ as routes into the content,  and ‘Who we are’ replaced the more traditional ‘About us’.

Through lots of experimentation and play, we settled upon the visual language that mimics the layered sound of the orchestra (shown in the early mock up, above)

Large blocks of layered colour bring an unconventional approach to navigation, and provide a quick and simple overview of what the OAE are all about.

Through refinements and plenty of detailed designs, we worked that experimental style through the entire site, designing every permutation across mobile, tablet and desktop screens.

The result is a site that oozes personality and sets the orchestra apart from any of their peers. The OAE are truly a peerless orchestra with a website to match.

And of course we didn’t forget the Tessitura ticketing and donations integration.

We used TNEW to provide slick integration that has reinvented the ways that OAE sell tickets and interact with their donors and members.