Nonprofits & Arts and Music

Saskatoon Youth Orchestra

Designed, developed, and looked after by Becker Design. This is one of hundreds of websites we've shipped over the years, and one of dozens of hand-built websites you can explore in our portfolio of recent builds.

Visit this website ↗Get a website like this

Live at — syo.ca

Client mark

Saskatoon Youth Orchestra website by Becker Design

Fig. 01 — Saskatoon Youth OrchestraNonprofits & Arts and Music

Overview

Web Design & Development Project Overview

The Saskatoon Youth Orchestra is two ensembles rather than one. The orchestra takes musicians from fourteen to twenty-four; Saskatoon Strings runs alongside it for players from ten to eighteen who are earlier in the same journey. That structure is the organisation’s whole shape, and a website that flattens it into one “programs” page makes a fourteen-year-old violinist and their parent work out for themselves which one is being described.

So the site keeps them distinct and puts Join first in the navigation, because an orchestra that ages its members out every few years is always recruiting. Concerts and past seasons have their own section, Support gathers individual giving and corporate sponsorship in one place, and a set of member and music resources sits behind the public-facing pages for people already in the group.

Full-page captures

The whole site, top to bottom

Take a glance at full pages, exactly as they shipped.

Fig. 02 — Saskatoon Youth OrchestraFull page
Fig. 03 — Saskatoon Youth OrchestraFull page

Hover a capture to pan top → bottom · static on touch

Case study

Deep Dive

What actually went into Saskatoon Youth Orchestra’s build, decision by decision — and the service behind each one.

01
An organisation that has to recruit every year
A youth orchestra loses its oldest musicians on a schedule and has to replace them on the same schedule. That makes recruitment permanent rather than seasonal, and it is why Join is the first thing in the navigation rather than a line under About. The site's most important visitor is a teenager, or a parent of one, who has not decided yet.
Where this goes deeper→ SEO
02
Ten to eighteen, and fourteen to twenty-four
Saskatoon Strings and the orchestra itself are separate ensembles with overlapping ages and different demands. Collapsing them into a single programs page would leave a family working out which description applies to their kid — the single question the site most needs to answer. They stay structurally distinct, so the answer is arrived at rather than deduced.
Where this goes deeper→ WordPress Design
03
The bit of the site that isn't for the public
Current members need rehearsal information and sheet music; prospective members need persuading. Those are different jobs and they degrade each other when mixed — nothing dampens a recruitment page like a schedule for people who already joined. Member and music resources live in their own area, reachable by anyone who needs them and out of the way of everyone who doesn't.
Where this goes deeper→ WordPress Management
04
Two kinds of money, one place to give it
A parent giving fifty dollars after a concert and a company considering a season sponsorship are both supporters, and both give up if the path is unclear. Support holds individual donations and corporate sponsorship together rather than filing the second one under About or, worse, leaving it to a phone call somebody has to feel motivated enough to make.
Where this goes deeper→ Nonprofits