KEEPING ART EDUCATION EASY TO ACCESS

The historic Ursuline campus in downtown San Antonio is filled with frenetic activity. Paintbrushes flow over canvases, clay spins from lumps to pristine vessels, fiber twirls across looms, strobes flash to capture digital images. The Southwest School of Art is a creative circus where master teachers lead dreamers to the fulfillment of their dreams. Of course, all of these classes must be scheduled, registrations have to be recorded and events need to be promoted. And it has to be beautiful. SSA turned to esd.

direct paths to information

SSA offers many different kinds of “products.” In addition to traditional art classes, the school hosts lunch-hour seminars, summer camps, exhibitions and special offerings. esd was called upon to create an online “store” where students and supporters could come to the site and “order” whatever they need. esd made the enrollment process – formerly accomplished by hand through telephones and mail-in registrations – fully electronic.
Create, See, Attend and Go – classes, exhibitions, events and tours of the historic grounds are available through well-identified vertical panels accompanied by an excellent image. Above the main “hot buttons” are menus that drop down the moment the user’s mouse hovers over them. The website visitor can quickly access the information they seek through a direct, intuitive navigation.
The site also reaches out: the school is able to use its new online technology to e-mail specific students, prospects and donors to announce events as they come up.

immediate success

Within days of the site’s launch, students and supporters of the school were enjoying its capabilities. SSAC administrators love loading new classes and events through the esd-designed content system. Thorough engineering with elegant design – truly befitting a school of art and craft – esd is proud of our involvement in bringing ancient creative traditions into the hands of artists forming expressions of the future.