Our Client

Interlochen Center for the Arts is a world- renowned institution for arts education that includes a summer arts camp, a high school arts academy, a place where adults can take art classes and workshops, a National Public Radio affiliate, offering both music and news radio stations, and a venue for concerts and performances by luminaries ranging from Willie Nelson to Yo-Yo Ma. Their state-of-the-art facilities are located on a beautiful 1,200 acre wooded campus in western Michigan.

What They Needed

Overseeing one Web site can be overwhelming enough, let alone six. With sites and content aimed at so many different audiences, Interlochen needed the ability to easily and effectively manage separate domains within a unified visual and technical framework. Working with the open source content management platform Drupal, Palantir developed a solution that brought together design and technology to address this seemingly messy proposition.

How We Helped

Palantir designed Interlochen’s site by adapting their existing print-based branding for the Web and establishing distinct color sets for each of their six domains. The landing pages for each site feature an extremely flexible grid that allows each domains to have its own visual personality within the larger Interlochen brand. Providing Interlochen with a degree of layout flexibility through Drupal’s Panels module also went a long way towards making each domain feel unique. The sites are designed to showcase Interlochen’s extensive video library, utilizing a Palantir- developed open source media player to display performance highlights and videos showcasing the institution and its programs.

On the back-end, Drupal’s multifaceted user management capabilities gave Interlochen site administrators the ability to specify which domain a user can edit content on as well as the content types they can edit. This enables administrators to delegate tasks per individual, thus making content proliferation and maintenance more efficient. Using the Domain Access module, administrators also have the ability to determine where a piece of content can appear by simply clicking a check box next to the corresponding domain, allowing information to be shared across multiple domains if desired, a critical piece of functionality in organizing the site’s content.

The site Palantir developed for Interlochen’s two public radio stations pulls in news feeds from various sources, allowing to keep up with the latest local, regional, and national stories, listen to individual programs, or stream the station live from anywhere in the world using a variety of common formats.

The Upshot

Interlochen’s new site, which brings together the different aspects of the institution’s personality, is a true reflection of their collaborative spirit.