When it comes to classical music artist management HarrisonParrott are at the forefront. In 2010 we had the privilege of redesigning and developing their website – a site that was loved by the client and their peers and competitors.

Two years on, although the site still stood up against its competition, it was felt it was time to give the website a new lease of life, with a fresh design and some additional functionality.

The site was already full of engaging content and stunning photography, which made it a real pleasure finding a simple, stylish design to frame it all.

But we didn’t stop there. We created a carousel, which gave the client ultimate freedom to change images as well as feature site content such as relevant news and new artist signings.

The news section was revamped so that there is a hierarchy of content, and again here the client has the ability to change the order so that the focus is not always on just the latest item.

As well as added control and flexibility, we also integrated a series of players (including an HTML5 verison), so that all audio and video content played on iPads (extremely important as the artist managers like to use these to showcase their roster for potential bookings), mobile and desktop browsers.

All of which made for a great showcase at the IAMA industry conference in Budapest last month!

Original site post

The new Harrison Parrott website went live at the end of last month.

Harrison Parrott (“HP” to their friends) are one of the world’s leading classical music artist and project management agencies. As we have discovered they are also a highly principled, ultra-professional, appreciative and engagingly eclectic group of people.

The new site is the product of a rigorous development process that included Scenario Planning, persona creation and brand definition.

Scenario Planning is a proprietary tool that uses a combination of stakeholder workshops and spreadsheet number crunching to directly relate user goals to business objectives. This allows us to objectively prioritise functionality and content via a process that is jointly owned by all of the key decision makers.

The planning for this project included primary research amongst various audiences including orchestra promoters, record labels, journalists and musicians. These audiences presented us with a sometimes contradictory set of insights around attitudes to all things social, technology usage, and the role of agency websites in their professional lives.

The process of reconciling these insights has resulted in a site that is finely tuned (no pun intended) to be fit for commercial purpose whilst offering a clean, efficient and intuitive user experience.

It has also resulted in simple but innovative features such as a notebook facility that allows users to create a personalised list of artists as they browse the site. These lists can be saved, printed or shared by email via a unique link. The notebook is already proving to be a popular feature both within and outwith the agency.

So there you have it. We clearly enjoyed the project and working with the HP team. This is what they had to say about us.

“Impressed by their work for Sadler’s Wells, Edinburgh International Festival and Dilettante Music, we found Blonde to be an energetic and responsive agency. Their proposal for the redevelopment of our website was fresh and creative, but clearly focused on what we were trying to achieve. Asking the right questions to ensure they understood our business and our culture, they delivered – on schedule – a clean and striking site which is easy to use and features innovations that work for us and our users. We’re looking forward to continuing to develop our digital marketing strategy with this highly professional outfit.”

Antonio Orlando, Marketing and PR Manager

We are delighted to have been appointed by Harrison Parrott to develop a digital communications strategy and associated assets.

The appointment is the result of a competitive pitch process and further strengthens our credentials in digital promotion of the arts.

Edinburgh International Festival
Dilettante Music
Sadlers Wells Screen
Breakin’ Convention
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Creative Scotland

The account will be run from our London office.