Posts Tagged ‘websites’

The Black Door

Friday, September 16th, 2011

The essence of interior design will always be about people and how they live. It is about the realities of what makes for an attractive, meaningful environment. ~ Albert Hadley

When interior designer Jessica Nakata of The Black Door Interior Design firm was in search of a marketing communications and interactive company to redesign her website, she turned to Gunn|Jerkens for our expertise. The new website’s architecture and creative was strategically designed and developed to complement The Black Door’s brand image – simplistic and chic.  To achieve this goal, we refreshed the logo type and created a logo mark element, which can be used as an icon and helps to create brand identity outside of the logo type. A new light-colored patterned background was also incorporated into the layout. And to showcase Jessica’s beautiful design work, stunning photography of her projects was utilized as the central focal point of the site.

The end result is a visually stimulating, clean and sophisticated design that is intuitive to navigate, making it very user friendly.

In addition to the new website, Jessica has set up a Facebook page, used for sharing her work and providing interior design tips and ideas to her audience. By building a business page, The Black Door Interior Design will gain additional exposure, helping to increase brand awareness and further develop the search engine optimization (SEO) strategy already in place.

Jessica was a great client to work with. Her expertise in design and her willingness to let us in on her creative process made this project a fun and memorable one.

To stay up to date on all the new and innovative happenings at Gunn|Jerkens, check back often, follow us on Twitter (@GunnJerkens) and “Like” us on Facebook.

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Posted in Around the Office, Branding, Consider This, Our Neck of the Woods, Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »

It’s not what you look at that matters – it’s what you see.

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

Gunn/Jerkens recently finished a project for a terrific client, O’Brien Homes. We created a whole new website design for the homebuilder, which we’re very proud of but more importantly the client is too! We realize that good design is required to function well, not just look good. Part of our goal with this project was to create a space that provided users with an easy-to-navigate website that didn’t ask the user to click through too many pages to find the sought-after information.

Charles Eames once said, “Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.” With this in mind, we wanted to create a website capable of being used for two different purposes: 1) to promote the different O’Brien Homes neighborhoods available to potential homebuyers; and 2) to promote O’Brien Homes as a company that provides the valuable information its customers are searching for. In order to do so, we had to find the right combination of corporate formality and the neighborly warmth O’Brien Homes is committed to.

Here are a couple of our early concept designs…

Although this design clearly incorporates images to reinforce the concept of family living, there are too many things for the eyes to focus on, creating confusion and limiting easy navigation for the user.

The second design is much cleaner than the first, but the page lacks the inviting feeling that O’Brien Homes is known for.

We knew with the second design that we were getting close, but still needed to make a few tweaks. Here’s what the finished product looks like…

This version offers a clean design that is entirely user friendly and easy to navigate. A potential homebuyer can:

  • Immediately see the cities that O’Brien Homes has neighborhoods in
  • Conduct a quick search for available homes
  • Get information on qualifying for a home loan
  • Request special offer notifications and view updates from the O’Brien Homes team
  • Contact the O’Brien Homes corporate office
  • Learn more about the O’Brien Homes team
  • Request repair service on purchased homes

The map on the homepage has been simplified to highlight only the locations O’Brien Homes has communities in. This design also makes better use of the space on the page and highlights key functions that are of interest to the user, such as the special offers & updates and “what’s new” sections. Also, notice the main image on the final design distinctly illustrates the comfort of O’Brien’s homes and is consistent with the company’s brand and slogan, “Building homes with character.”

We’re very pleased with the end result and want to give a big “thank you!” to the entire O’Brien Homes team for the opportunity to spearhead this project. It was a pleasure to work with you!

To stay up to date on all the new and innovative happenings at Gunn/Jerkens check back often, follow us on Twitter (@GunnJerkens) and “Like” us on Facebook.

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Posted in Around the Office, Branding, Consider This, Our Neck of the Woods, Technology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Here Kitty

Friday, October 8th, 2010

By now, you’ve probably seen the commercial for Ikea’s “Happy Inside” campaign that made the rounds last month where a bunch of cats were let loose inside a London Ikea store.

Here’s a fun companion website — cats.ikea.com — that let’s you win prizes. Just choose the piece of furniture you want and then guess which of the cats liked the same piece for a chance to win it. The site is simple and is consistent with the odd Ikea-ness that they’re known for with their advertising. It also seamlessly integrates the product descriptions when you are playing the game and it works well with Facebook and YouTube.

Try it out and don’t worry if you don’t win; they have some random cat YouTube videos as consolation prizes.

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Posted in Branding, General Blogginess | No Comments »

Tangled Web

Monday, August 9th, 2010

So around 11pm last night, I fell into a trap that I encounter at least once a month. I logged on to the internet with simple intentions (in this case, I was looking for a David Gray video) and then, three hours later, I look at the clock and wonder where the time went.

There are probably much more productive things to do with my time, such as sleeping, than watching third-rate cover versions of songs performed in a dorm room but sometimes I can’t help but click on some of YouTube’s “Suggestions” only to travel down that never-ending path of tangentially related videos. You know what it’s like: you find music videos from the artist then you find live performances which have too much crowd noise so you find a better recording after which you find an acoustic cover…it never seems to end!

The thing is, when I do go on one of these multiple-hour web binges, I never go scouring the web from topic to topic. Instead, I usually spend hours looking at essentially the same thing. I wonder if a website’s suggestions/related items feeds into my OCD tendencies? In the past, I’ve also been guilty of losing track of time while:

  • Browsing Flickr: I’ll see a contact’s recent upload and check it out and then I’ll see what groups the user put the picture in and then it’s all over. I start looking at group submissions and find all of these random groups and discover new photographers.
  • Facebook Hunting: Sometimes I’ll get inspired and try to remember as many people from my past, like high school, and then I can spend hours trying to find them on Facebook. Don’t tell me “Facebook stalking” isn’t one of your pastimes!
  • Cleaning iTunes: I do this so rarely that when I do commit to doing it, it’s a huge ordeal. I need to make sure every song has cover art, every title is capitalized appropriately and I even check that the volume levels are equal. I can’t explain the level of satisfaction I get once I’m done!

This post is part confession but hopefully also the start of a support group for people who find themselves doing the same thing. I can’t be alone in this — What sort of sites do you get trapped in when you’re online?

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Posted in Consider This, General Blogginess | 2 Comments »

How to Avoid a Crash Landing (Page)

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

From drastically cutting down text to reducing the amount of clickable links for users to choose from, there are a number of things you can do to make your landing page a more successful one.

The good people over at the American Express Open Forum® have compiled a useful and straightforward tip sheet to help spark your landing page conversation. Check it out here and see what these seven useful hints can do for you.

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Posted in General Blogginess | No Comments »