data Tip on building 7.1 from the start or starting from a template? Database or Squarespace search?

Site URL: https://www.musikcentrumost.se/en/artists/

Hi,

I am starting up a new squarespacesite for our not fot profit platform for artists. Today we have a super-advanced custom built page (or rather the database is advanced)  that theoretically works amazing but the company that built it is absolutely impossible to work with and we have big issues on almost everything and I want to move to Squarespace and build something new, stable and that we can control ourselves. This means we need to either create something that works within Squarespace with genres and a general simple search motor. Or that we create a third party solution. Two questions:

1. If we go for a all in Squarespace solution, any advice on that and what 7.1 template you could use? Do you also have any experience in to have default template for each under page or post (i. e. artist page). You can see what kind of material we put up, a couple of videos, spotifylist, image and some text + links to social etc.

2. If we go for an external database solution, any advices or experience on that.

Budget-wise we can invest a little bit but we are a small org. Volume-wise we are looking at maybe 300 artists divided in maybe 7-8 genres.

Thanks in advance,

Ragnar

Just so you know, 7.1 is one template with 18 design starting points, each one can be made to look like the other. There is no option to switch templates in 7.1.  7.0 is still around and it has a huge selection of templates, and those in the same family are still seperate templates that you can switch to, not always easy to do however.  The question is which to use? 

7.0 templates, including the very popular Brine, the template family that the look of 7.1 is based on,  can been viewed here:   https://www.squarespace.com/templates/browse/v7/all-templates

Here are the 7.1 templates including all demo sites: https://www.squarespace.com/templates?channel=mixedmedia&subchannel=onepagelove&subcampaign=editorial&utm_source=onepagelove&utm_medium=mixedmedia&utm_content=editorial

Personally I am still a 7.0 user and very happy with my choice of template, it is one of the oldest but very versatile, and my site looks very different from the default Avenue template.

  Since you ask about which 7.1 to use for your needs, I like the minimalist approach with a site that pops out images, not dark backgrounds, so I would use Beaumont.  Squrespace has no page limit any longer with any plan (unlike the much older plan I am on) so you will not have a database limit issue with. 7.1  7.1  and some 7.0 templates do not have a built in seach bar but you can add a search block to a page in either case. 

My personal site (I have built many) is here: my random views.