Brian Bates

Independent artists have the most to gain from the Internet. While so-called "indies" often feel as though they lag impossibly behind, the reality is they often have the mental outlook to fight tough battles that established artists feel are below them. And the current publishing environment is for the street fighters, not the board room strategists.

Brian Bates is a great example. Brian and his management at D2 Entertainment knew they couldn't rely on the media to tell their message in an accurate and consistent manner. They asked Generator to design a web site that would establish Brian's brand image in the market, and give them all the tools they would need to publish their content as soon as it became available.

Design

Most of the time, labels and artists already have photography they want to use at their site. This helps with brand consistency, and keeps your budget as small as possible. This was the case with Brian, who had invested in an excellent photo session that had a lot of great options for the brand image of his site. We used that imagery to create a site that was very professional, but still very approachable.

We also used a very distinct color palette — greens and browns — and a main typeface that stands out from the crowd. The entire look and feel of Brian's site is very unique and eye-catching, and while it has some nice design bells and whistles, the site loads very quickly, enhancing the user experience.

Flash

Flash plays an integral role in Brian's site. First, the main logo draws out Brian's name in a compelling script, which immediately tells visitors that Brian is an artist with style. In addition, the Flash script actually serves a unique marketing purpose, as it draws the visitor's view from one of the key features of the site — the email list signup — to Brian's main brand photograph.

Second, Brian is involved in a special mission in Africa called Mission Bo. We created an animated button with custom Action Script that reacts on rollover, that links to a page dedicated to promoting this unique outreach.

Dynamic navigation

The navigation bar at the site is a unique way to separate up the site's categories. Set in two rows, the nav items have rollovers that turn the name to bright yellow. Also, the site uses Generator's dynamic subnavigation menu, which features member login and profile links, as well as links to pages within each site section. These features give the site an interactive feel, while still remaining visible to search engines (which do not see Flash when compiling search rankings).

Sidebar

The two key functions of the site are the store and Brian's touring schedule. That's why we created prominent sidebar insets that appear on every page of the site. Visitors are always one click away from making a purchase and finding a concert near them. This helps Brian drive fans to the store and to his concerts, which are the two main ways he makes a personal connection with his customers.

Take a look at Brian's site right now by clicking here.