About the client
Begun in 1914, Cornish College of the Arts offers Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in the performing and visual arts and a Bachelor of Music degree, along with year-round public programs and extension courses. The College’s founder Nellie Cornish, and the many teaching artists who have followed her, believed in education through exposure to all of the arts, and this approach continues to inform the College’s curricula and community involvement today.
The challenge
Cornish needed to rethink the digital experience for its non-degree programs, beginning with Summer@Cornish and expanding to Cornish+. The sites needed to express the college’s creative identity while helping visitors explore programs, register for courses, purchase event tickets, and find spaces to rent.
The project required more than a visual redesign. Related programs were disconnected, and the new site needed to bring course information, registration, checkout, and student accounts into a coherent experience. It also needed to accommodate both students purchasing courses for themselves and families registering younger participants.
A shared design language
We began with Summer@Cornish, establishing a design language that could extend to the broader Cornish+ offering. The goal was to give these programs a distinct presence while maintaining a clear connection to the college’s existing brand.
We built on Cornish’s colors, patterns, and asymmetric layouts, introducing additional textures and colors to distinguish areas of study. Program landing pages combined this visual identity with a consistent structure for exploring courses. Across desktop and mobile, we adapted the layouts to preserve the content and functionality while giving the artwork room to stand out.
Bringing the programs to life
Cornish already had a rich collection of video footage showing its campus and creative programs. We proposed using that material in looping hero videos to give visitors an immediate sense of the college and the range of experiences available.
We edited the footage into sequences for the homepage and selected program pages. Alongside photography and artwork, the videos brought movement into the design and made the programs more tangible for prospective students.
From course discovery to registration
We reorganized the course experience around the relationship between programs, courses, and individual class offerings. Program pages introduced each area of study, while course pages presented the information visitors needed to choose an offering and register. Related courses and electives created connections across the catalog, giving visitors more ways to explore their interests.
We developed the commerce platform using Drupal and Drupal Commerce, with a custom cart and checkout experience tailored to course registration. The underlying content structure distinguished a curriculum course from the scheduled class a student actually purchases, allowing multiple offerings to sit beneath the same course.
Student accounts brought orders, class details, payment status, and student profiles together. This supported families managing registrations for younger students as well as adults enrolling in their own courses. We also refined the order history to make payments and promotions easier to understand.
Website is outstanding. I’ve already gotten a ton of positive feedback. It’s rare to find a team that is as humble yet as competent as this team. I enjoyed my interactions with all of the team members of Black Antelope.Kel DyllaExecutive Director, Cornish+
Supporting program administration
The registration experience also needed to serve the staff running Cornish’s programs. We provided class enrollment tables and CSV exports to support student rosters, including the student information required for administration.
These tools gave staff a practical way to work with registrations collected through the website. We also created recorded walkthroughs for managing course content and duplicating class offerings, helping the Cornish team maintain the catalog as new sessions became available.
Connecting Cornish with its community
Cornish+ also brings together the college’s support for artists and its broader role in Seattle’s cultural community. We designed a community section for partnerships, residency opportunities, and the Neddy Artist Awards, giving each initiative a clear place within the site.
For the Neddy Awards, the challenge was presenting a substantial amount of information within a small number of pages. We organized the content into distinct sections that fit the broader design language while accommodating the award’s specific needs.
Events and rental spaces extended this community focus. Event listings paired calendar navigation with details such as location, time, and ticket pricing. Rental pages presented space availability and a request form, helping visitors take the next step toward booking a rehearsal or performance space.
