BMA Today Newsletter — August Issue

Introduction

I have been a member of BMA Colorado for nearly 6 months, and have been recommended by a colleague to the board the opportunity to work on a publication as her term was up. I was honored and gladly volunteered to work on the BMA Today newsletter, which appears in The Review, a monthly magazine and online publication. It’s a full two page spread, highlighting the Colorado Chapter monthly upcoming events, roundtables, luncheons, speakers, and workshops. This month, I had the opportunity to redesign and make it appear as it were my own while in keeping with the current brand.

Design Solutions

The masthead and footer had to stay pretty much the same in keeping with the current brand. The graphic elements, color in the masthead stayed consistent. What did change, I wasn’t exactly thrilled how stark the sponsor information was along the top. Luckily, I was able to remove one of the sponsors which helped open the space up a bit and easily made the logos a little larger. So, what I did to soften the space a little more was add a cream background with a rounded corner box and gradient to make it pop just a tad more, but still very subtle. So, anytime I would treat the content area with a cream box, it would tie the two together, and your eye tend to move around the page.

Sometimes fitting content can be a challenge. It was really important to highlight the speaker information with day of event information. I had to even add new information which made it a challenge to fit all in the right column, and the client kept adding more and more content for that area. Also, Advise from the Top book image with content was laid out in a way to really pop along with calling out thanking it’s volunteers. Above, there was even room to add three small images along the top for each article to call it since it was on it’s own page, which some may just want to skip over this page. Using images are a good way to move your eye quickly as possible to pick up the information as quickly as possible and is most appealing to read.

I like this particular layout as there is a lot of white space to help keep your eye moving around the page. Every month probably could expect more and more content, which will create new and exciting challenges.

To review online: BMA Today

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Sam’s No. 3

We just launched the redesign of Sam’s No. 3 website. Six versions later, the client is very satisfied with the outcome of final product of their website. Once we received all of the right artwork the website started to come to life. We even hired a photographer, Chris with Free Lunch Photography to take some shots of the food. This was really a turning point for Sam’s as they did not have any of their food items on the previous website. Some of the biggest challenges in the beginning was coming up with a cohesive design that would blow the audience away. The graphics had to be playful, but wacky. And we literally started without nothing no images, no graphics, so first couple of layouts didn’t look like Sam’s No. 3 at all. It was important that the design not follow a grid or be really boxy like a lot of websites seem today. After layer upon layer each area of the website became it’s own entity, and think we especially depicted that on the home page by having each unique area point to the pages that were also in the navigation. It created a scene of a noisy, but yet fun diner (w/ music). We launched just in time as they air on the Food Network tonight at 7pm MST on the show “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives” Be sure and check it out!

The show helped our search results. Keyword search “Diners in Denver” and the site landed on page one of Google in a week.

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Introduction

Ideas were really flowing for this one. I was honored to do a website for a bingo parlor right here in Denver, Colorado. This was there very first website ever, it was about time, as they have been in business for a while. It was a challenge coming up with an interesting concept as there are not really any beautifully designed websites out there or according to today’s design standard, unless it was for ‘online bingo.’

Design Concept

We went back and forth on color before finalized. We thought green would be the best dominant color as it symbolizes money, one of the sole purposes of playing bingo. We also thought having a whimsical collage of images would show a fun atmosphere. Also, the main image would incorporate different age groups to show diversity. Our call-to-action was along the top to appear on every page, which was a map or location of Barrys Bingo that linked to the contact us page.

Features

I was also excited to incorporate Google’s feedburner, that way the Must Go Alerts were dropped in peoples mailbox almost daily, or when a post has been published. Even specials may be delivered in inbox almost daily or when available.

We also called out the MustGo Alerts / Specials and Schedules / Progressives on the home page.

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Case Study :: Mooselake Lodge

Introduction

I was excited for the opportunity to design my very first lodging website. We completely overhauled the website with a new fresh look and content with strong metas and keywords. This site was not easily found on the web prior, nor was it easy to navigate, and there were images missing. We also wanted to get the site on a content management system that was easily editable, especially the lodging information as it changed most frequently.

Go Fish

The previous design, had the navigation laid out along the center which easily confused the viewer to believe as body links. Also, the site was not easily manageable usually goes not above the fold on smaller monitors or laptop computers. A rule of thumb is to have navigation either horizontal and/or on the left and column. The more important links above the fold.

Navigation Solutions

I thought it was important to call out important links in two areas or sometimes three locations (including footer) to make it easier for the viewer to find the different lodging options available to them along with price points. Also, originally the navigation approved in the design phase in the left hand column was displayed in a way that did not call out each lodge. I felt it was important to call out and decided at the last minute to not only place at the top above the fold, but to also categorize each grouping of links so that your eye is more drawn to each area.

Design Solutions

1. During the layout phase, the second layout was the chosen layout as the text was easier to read with a white background versus creme.
2. It was more important to display a main image of a panaromic view of all the lodges rather than the image of the boat on the lake to demonstrate a more luxurious visit rather than rustic.
3. We did not find any plugins specific to call out each lodge which would help the client make updates more easily. So, instead I just highly stylized each area to draw attention. It was really important to remain consistent across the board and call attention the important areas worth highlighting. Also, we added a gallery of photos that were categorized according to each house / lodge and made it simple for the prospect to either view each image through a pop up or a automated slideshow.

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Case Study :: Newbarrys Restaurant

Introduction

We started out with a simple layout that was in line with the current brand of the restaurant. Mind you, this is a business which has been established for many many years and have never had a website.

Design Solutions

It was advised to give it just a little more pop and dimension by adding a glow and drop shadow to the logo, keeping in mind to not move away too much from the established brand. We even faded out the wood background image. Also in today’s standards for the web, text-shadows are becoming more of a trend, so we thought it was a good idea to add to the title of each page. To add more dimension, we also added a plate of food with drinks and toast to give it more of an inviting feeling to come into diner. Also, the owner wanted a plate incorporated, so I felt it was important to tie the plate and balance just as so. It was important to keep it faded so that the text overlaying the background was not distracting or difficult to read.

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This is one of the most challenging website created of the year in 2010.

The obstacles we encountered and how we overcame them were;

1. Problem: Easy way to post video. Solution: Discovered a theme and plugin that allows the customer to upload videos easily. First, upload to vimeo, then embed URL into page. Then published to the portfolio page.
2. Problem: Remove Ads on YouTube to not promote other businesses. Solution: We purchased an annual package to remove these ads to have clean video on website. Vimeo had this option, while YouTube did not.
3. Problem: A simple method for companies clients to see film in progress for proofing purposes. Solution: Found a video Plugin that makes it simple to load video(s) to a page. It was suggested to password protect these pages so that only clients may have access to them. This was a simple solution to avoid the hassle of uploading video to FTP site. Also, through FTP a link is provided, although, limited security through email transit. It was important to protect the privacy as much as possible.
4. Problem: Creating a simple design similar to previous website which was done in Flash. Solution: Created a couple of different layouts, one that was more “edgy” while the other was in keeping with the current website at the time. It was important to keep the video as the highlighted feature, so the second or the more “edgy” layout did not work in this case.

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Gentle Touch Animal Hospital

Introduction

Since April/May of 2010, we are excited to announce in a very competitive market, for keyword search “Animal Hospital Denver,” Gentle Touch is ranked either at the bottom of page one or top of page two. But, today Google honored the site as #1. Our client has been really good about updating their Facebook Fan page along with blogging on a regular basis since going LIVE. Also, at time of development we even added “Previous Posts” widget on the home page to make site more dynamic, AND best part is it’s automated. All of these extra steps truly makes a difference in your page ranking.

Design

One of the few challenges we were faced with the design was choosing animals across the board EVEN keeping equal distribution of images of cats and dogs. I still think dogs are more dominant on this site.

Second, we wanted a unique header for each page to show Veterinarians helping animals. However, in the end there wasn’t any good stock photography to demonstrate just that without it looking staged. So, we decided showing a picture of the hospital would be best way to show more of a welcoming and inviting message to the potential customer. Plus it’s another way to advertise to know how to find the hospital which is especially important in any emergency situation. Having enough imagery of animals, hospital, and community programs helped make any visitor feel more welcomed and not intimidated (like if were to place the waiting room more dominant in the header would not be very inviting, in my opinion). Adding just that extra personal touch makes all the difference in the world. Now the blog contains frequent updates of recalls and announcements to demonstrate the knowledge of the staff of staying up to speed with the latest news in a competitive market.

#1 on Google for “animal hospital denver”

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We just completed the complete redesign of PBM Excavating and Professional Building Movers, both by the same owners. The criteria was to come up with a cohesive brand to tie both websites together, while at the same time wanted to keep the websites also separate. Often their customers think both companies are the same service. While they offer similar services, it was im portant to keep them as separate companies which was a challenge. The photos were so common that it was easy to mix the two sites up. It was also important to have images for each block of text. Although, we were running out of imagery to show or finding images to describe each. We did a pretty good job in the end coming up with images. The header graphic for Professional Building Movers was reworked over and over again. For PBM Excavating, the image of a truck excavating a home isolated from the background was not the best solution for the layout as it did not represent their business well. So, we discovered an image that best described the services with the background of mountains to show Colorado — which is their market — the perfect solution! There was constant struggle with the Professional Building Movers logo and is still not the final. Although, the concern was to alter the logo just slightly to keep in line with the trucks current brand as client did not want the expense to change all of their decals. Down the road the logo will be finalized. Overall, we are all very happy with the final website as it now has a fresh new look in design along with clean web content with searchable keywords. Soon, we’ll see the websites climb to the top of Google, stay tuned!

Pro Building Movers – is now #1 on Google for “building movers denver”

PBM Excavating – is on Page 1 of Google for “excavation denver”

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Completed the re-design of logo for Soul Tree Yoga, to be posted on website. The figure seen is an abstract of tree pose. It was important to keep the ‘S’ shape as previous logos, the ‘S’ was more removed and it
looked like an actual figure in tree pose.

The main challenge of this project was to create a logo where the “l” and “t” are combined but separate enough to visually see the “Soul Tree”, the actual name of the yoga studio.

Keep you informed when posted on website. I provided the art of all types of files as this was a low budget assignment for a start up company. This allows the business owner to create their own stationary in Microsoft Word, so .png files were given as well, along with .eps (print) and .gif (web).

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