The site needs for a competitive figure skating team are a combination, of sorts, of portfolio and business venture. Social media outlets are a wonderful resource for a team focusing on promotion and fan engagement; they are not a substitute for what a static site can provide.
Through a standard website, a skating team committed to a serious career can essentially offer a professional one-stop-shop for interested parties. Andréanne and Marc, like many other couples, maintain a Facebook page for updates on their career and activities, but this site also provides them with a central outlet to host key information pertinent to both fans and potential sponsors and other supporters: in-depth biographies, competitive record, media links, program details and even a page dedicated to Andréanne’s work away from the ice as a Thai massage therapist. Sponsorship and funding information, event schedules and media galleries are other features typical of many skater websites, consolidating important content in a more streamlined manner than always possible via Facebook or Twitter. Social links, of course, unite all team social media accounts — perhaps saving a visitor another search.
In designing Andréanne and Marc’s site, I had the advantage of creative freedom; with design proposals approved, discussion came mostly in the case of photo choices. But even as I had liberty in devising the site’s overall appearance — and, working template-free in Dreamweaver, liberty down to coding the smallest frame, sometimes a mixed blessing — it was most important to reflect the team’s image. Pastel and dark neutral color palette, mix of retro type and Gallic script font choices, clean but unusual sidebar layout with a few frills — to me these evoked the Quebec-representing couple’s elegant but bohemian qualities on the ice. One fun pre-release bit of fortuitousness? Andréanne’s free dance dress for the 2015-16 season, unveiled at a competition in mid-August one week before we went live, presented a near perfect match with the primary sky blue background color, as can be seen on the home page.
Serious athletes and performers will have their own unique promotional needs, and it’s essential that a site give a proper impression of its subject. A good site, fundamentally, is not synonymous or replaceable by social; it is an enhancement of what social can offer. It’s a distillation of that team or individual within a self-contained space.