The Unorthodoks Approach In Action - Our Own Website Redesign Case Study
As of late I've been posting case studies because I think it's integral that stimulate conversation and promote insight into how marketing and web design is actually done. Below is a case study outlining the steps that we went through when redesign our own website:
Sometimes enough is enough! Know when to say when! Sorry, might’ve had one too many clichés (or maybe two too many) but, I needed to get my point across. As business owners we have to recognize that we need to analyze ourselves and our companies and bring ourselves to the same high standards that we push our clients to. The turn of 2005 marked when Unorthodoks Marketing began the long needed website redesign of www.unorthodoks.com.
We had been using the same website look and feel initially designed back in 98’ for the past 7 years…and what might have been acceptable then definitely was no longer. We have multiple goals for visitors when at our site. Primarily, to sign up for our newsletter, The Unorthodoks Approach. It’s our main method of having consistent communication with past, current and potential clients. Secondly, to get a good idea of what we’ve done in the past and what we can do for those who come to us from both a marketing and web design standpoint.
Unorthodoks Marketing was started in the summer of 1998 as an Internet marketing firm that helps organizations reach the online African-American community. The need for web design services kept arising as many clients’ main impediment to increased sales and/or traffic was poorly designed websites. The Unorthodoks Marketing – Design Division was launched to develop websites from a marketing point of view. We firmly believe that the design, layout, look and feel, information, visuals and interactivity/content are all integral pieces to accomplishing the goals of a website which are almost always more than “looking pretty.”
Taking the name of the company into account, Unorthodoks (which is a play on the spelling of “unorthodox”) we did not want a standard layout. Coupled with the need to emphasize the newsletter sign-up, several important design and layout decisions were made. Most websites will have links straight down along the left side or horizontally across the top. As a result, we purposely choose to have them vertically aligned in two columns on the right side of the page.
We also wanted to choose a look and feel not commonly seen so, we developed the connected bubble-like shape with the bubble on the right highlighting the newsletter signup and the larger bubble on the left showcasing images of the demographic we serve. This allows for a dual effect of showing who our focus is on while also, adding a visually pleasing element to break up the text on the site.
In showing past, current and potential clients what we can do and have done, we paid particular attention to adding a portfolio that would be effective. We choose to use Flash (a style of coding that allows for more creativity and movement) because we wanted to show our proficiency in it. We wanted visitors to see the sites we designed but, didn’t want them to leave unorthodoks.com so, we created mini slideshows of clients’ sites. This allows us to show various pages of respective websites while keeping the visitor at our website.
We recognized that to continually attract the high quality clients we’ve come accustomed to working with we needed to package Unorthodoks Marketing as the high quality firm that we are. They say change is good. We knew change was necessary.
Before
www.unorthodoks.com B.C. (before the change) - visit: http://www.unorthodoks.com/oldsite/index.html
After
www.unorthodoks.com A.D. (after the design) - visit:
http://www.unorthodoks.com
Sometimes enough is enough! Know when to say when! Sorry, might’ve had one too many clichés (or maybe two too many) but, I needed to get my point across. As business owners we have to recognize that we need to analyze ourselves and our companies and bring ourselves to the same high standards that we push our clients to. The turn of 2005 marked when Unorthodoks Marketing began the long needed website redesign of www.unorthodoks.com.
We had been using the same website look and feel initially designed back in 98’ for the past 7 years…and what might have been acceptable then definitely was no longer. We have multiple goals for visitors when at our site. Primarily, to sign up for our newsletter, The Unorthodoks Approach. It’s our main method of having consistent communication with past, current and potential clients. Secondly, to get a good idea of what we’ve done in the past and what we can do for those who come to us from both a marketing and web design standpoint.
Unorthodoks Marketing was started in the summer of 1998 as an Internet marketing firm that helps organizations reach the online African-American community. The need for web design services kept arising as many clients’ main impediment to increased sales and/or traffic was poorly designed websites. The Unorthodoks Marketing – Design Division was launched to develop websites from a marketing point of view. We firmly believe that the design, layout, look and feel, information, visuals and interactivity/content are all integral pieces to accomplishing the goals of a website which are almost always more than “looking pretty.”
Taking the name of the company into account, Unorthodoks (which is a play on the spelling of “unorthodox”) we did not want a standard layout. Coupled with the need to emphasize the newsletter sign-up, several important design and layout decisions were made. Most websites will have links straight down along the left side or horizontally across the top. As a result, we purposely choose to have them vertically aligned in two columns on the right side of the page.
We also wanted to choose a look and feel not commonly seen so, we developed the connected bubble-like shape with the bubble on the right highlighting the newsletter signup and the larger bubble on the left showcasing images of the demographic we serve. This allows for a dual effect of showing who our focus is on while also, adding a visually pleasing element to break up the text on the site.
In showing past, current and potential clients what we can do and have done, we paid particular attention to adding a portfolio that would be effective. We choose to use Flash (a style of coding that allows for more creativity and movement) because we wanted to show our proficiency in it. We wanted visitors to see the sites we designed but, didn’t want them to leave unorthodoks.com so, we created mini slideshows of clients’ sites. This allows us to show various pages of respective websites while keeping the visitor at our website.
We recognized that to continually attract the high quality clients we’ve come accustomed to working with we needed to package Unorthodoks Marketing as the high quality firm that we are. They say change is good. We knew change was necessary.
Before
www.unorthodoks.com B.C. (before the change) - visit: http://www.unorthodoks.com/oldsite/index.html
After
www.unorthodoks.com A.D. (after the design) - visit:
http://www.unorthodoks.com
posted by Daze at 1:46 PM
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