La Belle Arts Dance Company
La Belle Arts has been running for eight years, built around a simple but deeply held ethos: every child who walks through the door becomes part of the LBA family.
Founded by Christie, who trained as a dancer and performer, the school has grown to more than 550 students across three Edinburgh studios, with eight members of staff delivering classes from age two through to eighteen. Adult classes have also been introduced, bringing the same welcoming and inclusive approach to a new audience.
The brief
The existing website wasn't working. Navigation was difficult to use, the design no longer reflected the quality or character of the school, adult classes were poorly represented and updating content required more effort than it should. For a school communicating with hundreds of families across multiple studios, that friction had real consequences — both for prospective families trying to find out about classes and for existing parents trying to access information.
The rebuild needed to do several things well simultaneously: make class sign-up clearer for new families, better promote adult classes, improve visibility of events and performances, integrate the Class4Kids booking system properly and create a secure parents' hub — a private area housing studio-specific information for each of the three venues.
Structure and architecture
The project followed a thorough process from the outset. A sitemap was developed and presented before any design work began, establishing the full page structure and URL architecture across the site. The primary navigation was rationalised into four clear sections — kids classes, adult classes, offerings and about — with a highlighted Book Classes button as a persistent call to action throughout. Home was removed from the navigation entirely and linked through the logo, freeing up navigation space and following proper UX convention.
The parents' hub — a password-protected area serving existing families — was deliberately separated from the main navigation and housed in the footer, with contextual links from within the relevant class pages to help parents find it naturally. Inside, each of the three studio locations has its own dedicated hub page, structured around the information parents actually need: timetables organised by class type, show information with dates, drop-off times and downloadable schedules, upcoming events, forms and documents, and uniform information linking through to the external supplier.
Wireframes were produced for key pages across the site before design began, mapping out page layouts, content hierarchy, button placement and conversion pathways in structural form. That process — establishing what would be on each page and where before applying any visual treatment — allowed the design phase to focus on bringing the brand to life rather than resolving structural questions mid-design.
Words from the client
“We are so pleased with the website that Studio Creates has designed for us. The design is beautiful and really captures the feel of our school, and the functionality works brilliantly for what we need. The training videos Sarah provided are clear and very helpful, making it easier for us to manage the site going forward. She kept to all of her deadlines, and we’re really happy with the end result. We would be very happy to recommend Studio Creates.”
Design
The visual approach worked with LBA's existing brand assets rather than redesigning them — fonts and colour palette were carried through and applied with more intention and expressiveness than the previous site had allowed. The script font was removed on accessibility grounds: it was difficult to read and undermined the clarity the site needed to achieve. The colour palette was rationalised to a coherent set of purples and blues, with white and black as the light and dark anchors.
Angular dividers and subtle star motifs drawn from the LBA brand were incorporated into the layouts to add dynamism and personality without overcomplicating the design. The overall feel — rounded buttons, accessible typography, brand-consistent colour usage — gave the site a warmth and energy appropriate for a performing arts school while keeping the navigation and page structure clearly legible.
Hero banners used performance photography and video where available, with the class pages structured around a secondary on-page navigation allowing families to jump quickly to the specific class type they were looking for. Accordions kept detailed information accessible without overwhelming the page layout.
SEO and content
Geographic SEO was embedded throughout — location names for Edinburgh, Stockbridge and the specific studio areas woven naturally into page copy and metadata. All page titles and meta descriptions were written and optimised as part of the build. Image alt tags were updated throughout for both accessibility and search visibility.
The copy provided by the client was reviewed and refined during the build — removing AI-generated phrasing and Americanised spelling, and ensuring the tone felt consistent with LBA's warm, community-focused character across every page.
FAQs were incorporated at the service page level, structured to support AI search visibility as well as traditional SEO — anticipating the conversational queries families type when looking for dance classes for their children in Edinburgh.
Booking and integrations
The Class4Kids integration was built into the kids' class pages, with clear pathways from class information through to booking. Adult classes were handled directly through Squarespace's own scheduling system. The Book Classes button in the navigation acts as a persistent conversion point throughout the site, routing visitors to the appropriate booking route depending on whether they're looking at children's or adult provision.
The uniform shop was linked prominently from within relevant pages, ensuring families could find that information without searching. Newsletter sign-up was integrated in the footer, with a standalone page also created for linking from social media and email campaigns.
What it delivers
La Belle Arts now has a website that reflects the quality and warmth of the school behind it. The navigation is clear. The class information is accessible. The booking journey is straightforward. The parents' hub gives existing families a practical resource they can actually use. And the SEO foundations give the school a stronger platform for organic discovery among the Edinburgh families it's trying to reach.
Tutorial videos were produced post-launch to give the LBA team the confidence to manage and update the site independently — keeping content current and the hub information accurate as shows, events and class schedules change throughout the year.
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