Claudia Malchow
Case Study
Background
Violist Dr. Claudia Malchow is an active performer, teacher, and collaborator based in Asheville, NC. Having recently graduated in the spring of 2022, she was looking to build out her lessons and teaching business but didn’t know where to start with her website and branding. She spent months planning out her teaching philosophy and plans for the teaching schedule. After a discovery conversation we landed on a few key goals.
Project Goals
1. Transparent and upfront pricing
2. Clear communication of teaching philosophy
3. Beautiful and professional branding that portrays Claudia as dedicated, fun, supportive, reliable, and student-centered
4. Ability to share resources and recommendations with students
Challenges
After our goals were clearly laid out, we could compare where we were with where we wanted to be. The initial challenge I tackled was the development of a brand identity that encapsulated Claudia’s bubbly personality combined with the professional nature of being a teacher.
After the branding foundation was developed, it was time to move onto the structure of the website and deciding the best way to communicate the pricing, teaching philosophy, and ability to share resources and recommendations.
The most difficult challenge to solve was communicating the pricing tiers in an easily digestible format. Claudia's teaching schedule follows a Spring, Summer, Fall format where student enroll and are committed for a set number of weeks. They must also decide on how long they want each session to be (e.g. 30, 45, or 60 minutes).
Solutions
Because we didn’t want to split the teaching terms information on its own page, I had to figure out a way to communicate three pricing tiers across the seasons with one of them having two different teaching lengths. Tabs ended up being the best way to display all the important information without any additional distractions. This allows for us to change which season is selected by default when a new user comes to the page to give them the next season they can sign up for.
The season icons and timer graphics help communicate the length of each lesson at a glance rather than having to sift through text. It was important to have price clarity up front to the customer, which was displayed in both the monthly cost as well as a total cost to the customer.
The design process for the brand identity started with sketching out ideas that were simple and timeless. A timeless typeface is a great foundation for any logo design and this project was no different. The initial typeface I used was Ratio Modern for the wordmark and Futura as a secondary typeface. These were a great start but ended up not feeling right for Claudia’s identity. Bodoni and Trade Gothic fit the feeling since Bodoni was a little narrower and had better contrast on thick and thin portions of the characters. The lines supporting graphics represent a blank staff that is ready to have music notes added to it. This symbolizes the teaching philosophy of discovering and developing her student's creativity through collaboration.
The last step in every brand identity project is to figure out the color scheme and we were looking for professional, classic, bubbly, and reliable. "Sunrise Gold" ended up being our winner to give a bright and warm feeling alongside "Sheet Music White" and "Pitch Black". Our primary color is "Sheet Music White" with "Pitch Black" and "Sunrise Gold" being used for supporting graphics, button hover effects, and the scroll bar.
Key Takeaways
In this case study, violist Dr. Claudia Malchow was seeking to build out her teaching business with a website and branding. The key goals were to have transparent pricing, clear communication of teaching philosophy, beautiful and professional branding, and the ability to share resources with students.
The challenges included developing a brand identity that balanced Claudia's bubbly personality with professionalism, structuring the website to communicate pricing and teaching philosophy, and communicating the pricing tiers in an easily digestible format.
The solutions included using tabs to display the pricing tiers and utilizing season icons and timer graphics to communicate lesson length. The brand identity was developed with a timeless typeface, supporting graphics that symbolize teaching philosophy, and a color scheme that balanced professionalism with a bubbly feel.
Overall, this case study demonstrates the importance of clear communication, design thinking, and a thorough understanding of the client's goals in creating a successful website and branding.