By: Andrew Centofante - 12-15-2009 - (1) Comments - Interactive

So if you are reading this right now, you are viewing our new site! This is a wonderful thing and I hope you take the time to explore for hidden gems.

Why Change?

One comment we have heard is “Why do you have a new site?! Your old one was soo cool!” We take this as a compliment, but the fact of the matter is that our old site simply did not meet the changing needs of our growing company. Our old site had an wow factor, but we are not the kind of company that hangs onto something just because it is “cool.”

Our old site was difficult for us to regularly update, it had very little content to help visitors understand our company better, and it focused on random projects here or there rather than the entirety of the campaigns that we are regularly involved in.  This last point is an important distinction because a major advantage to working with us is our ability to consistently impact all aspects of your advertising and branding campaign.  This is why many companies work with us and it was not being communicated to our customers. 

Now for the good stuff on why our site looks and acts the way it does!

Our biggest challenge was figuring out an easy way to update our work so that people can see what we have been doing. From past experience we knew we needed a content management system that would take some of the load off of the creative department, but we had to think about how to mold the system’s capabilities to our specific needs. The content management system would enable any of us, geeks and non-geeks, to add content easily with out having to touch a single line of code. We then implemented an internal process for regularly and quickly updating our site with new portfolio material. 

Our next challenge involved how we were going to display our work.  The main issue was that the work we do comes in different sizes and formats and includes video, websites, print pieces and logos. We wanted people to view a campaigns as a whole so they could could really get immersed in a project and better understand our value as a company. We also wanted to make sure that people kept browsing and didn’t come to a dead end once they were done with one campaign, so we added the next and previous campaign buttons to let people know there is more to see.

Another challenge was explaining exactly what we do. We have a unique position in the branding and advertising arena and communicating that is sometimes complicated.  Also, one of the big things about our service is it 100% customized to you and your needs. We thought this was a great mentality to go into the “what we do” and “about us” sections. We meticulously designed each of these pages with the subject matter in mind, using layout and graphics where we could to drive the overall message home. In terms of content we tried to keep it short sweet, using headlines and bit sized paragraphs to help people scan the site quickly.

Finally, we constructed our Articles (or blog) section. We used the same structure as the Work section for the same reason that we wanted people to keep reading. How many times have you visited a blog and never even thought to click and see what other articles they have to offer?  We wanted to make sure people had the option to keep going deeper.

Overall our site loads faster (under 1 second on most computers), is better suited for constant updating, is way more search engine friendly, has a lot more information and is built for expansion. Not too shabby! We have also set up an rss feed so that our content can be delivered directly to you, hot off the press. Just click here to subscribe.

Enjoy!