HOT NEW TALENT AGENCY WEBSITE DESIGN

American Talent Group

We book celebrities, politicians, authors, actors, and other speakers at event with colleges, corporate groups, association conferences, and more; we are also starting a literary agency side of my business-- selling book projects to major publishers. We're a small startup that wants to have the look and feel of an established major industry player, so design is important! Similar websites I lIke: http://www.macmillanspeakers.com, http://premierespeakers.com/, http://www.caaspeakers.com/ But none of these has great design in our opinion. We want better!

Primary: Corporate groups looking for public speakers for meetings and conferences; associations looking for speakers for their annual meetings and conferences; universities looking for speakers for lecture series.

We work with speakers and entertainment from across the spectrum, from authors and experts in the medical field to major national and international politicians, journalists, and more.

The major clients in this area are used to working with booking agencies like mine, and so have some familiarity with how other agencies websites look (for ex. http://www.washingtonspeakers.com, http://www.greatertalent.com, http://www.leadingauthorities.com). They are looking for ease of use and professional management of content so they can search effectively for the talent that they want to book, either by subject area or specific speaker.

Will use THESIS for WordPress. Look at our logo. This is who we are A clean, simple design that nonetheless catches the eye; a design that has the look and feel of being established but still cutting edge (think Conde Nast design, WSJ magazine, etc). Needs to feel high-end.
examples of sites I like:

http://magazine.wsj.com/
http://monocle.com/

Navigation bar: Top of page-- logo and contact information (address and phone #, and email address; "email us" button). TABS for pages: home, our speakers, other services, contact us, about us, FAQ. Side navigation: "search" box (search by name, by topic, or by entering keyword), "news. "

REVISED: One page only required for this contest. Homepage. Should have a box above the fold for slideshow function. Make sure "search" functionality is clear and has three aspects: pulldown for "by topic" and "by name" and then a "keyword" function where you can type a keyword and search.