San Francisco Ballet's Digital Transformation: A Dance with Innovation

Method Inc's Award-Winning Redesign Revolutionizes Ballet's Online Presence

Method Inc partnered with San Francisco Ballet to design a new digital platform that facilitates engagement with its audience through multiple touch points. The intention was to clarify the company’s story, provide inspiration through dance, and attract a broader audience through education. The new online experience gives audiences the freedom to explore and appreciate the ballet through multiple lenses, extending the same elegance found in a performance to focused tasks such as ticket purchase or donation.

Education and storytelling served as the primary drivers for the project, with the “changing season” as the overarching design theme. Due to Ballet’s repertory, off, and holiday seasons, Method approached the design to flexibly adapt to the features of each distinct time period. The navigation stems from the content of each page instead of an actual navigational dropdown menu, enabling related content to live amidst the pages, while providing quick access to other sections within the site.

The new online experience provides the SF Ballet with an outlet to communicate their story and inspire audiences to interact with the company through different touch points. The website offers users an extremely easy to use platform that they can navigate easily and quickly accomplish different actions. One of the goals in creating this website was to create something that would grow alongside the company. The new focus on storytelling and the modularity of the site will allow them to grow and evolve the story of SF Ballet over time.

Throughout the process of the project, the team focused on driving the potential of the interaction model, service layer, and design system to enhance storytelling and connections to San Francisco Ballet’s diverse audience. Though the performing arts space can be antiquated, San Francisco Ballet is more progressive than most. Still, they wanted their site to not only be innovative, but cutting-edge. The team accomplished this through a responsive, relevant, forward-looking digital experience that provides a direct path to the art form of dance.

Method faced the challenge of engaging the next generation of dance enthusiasts and donors by providing a coherent experience across touchpoints in a traditionally patron-based world—largely comprised of a more mature, affluent audience. The push to diversify and reach new groups has grown considerably, and what started as an opportunity has become a necessity. This Design was awarded Platinum in A' Website and Web Design Awards in 2017, recognizing world-class, exceptional, and highly innovative designs that showcase unmatched professionalism, genius, and contribute to societal wellbeing.