web redesign—before and after

Lets start the year off with a great web redesign-another soup design lab and Site Foresight collaboration. We redesigned the logo and designed the site’s home and product pages while Site Foresight handled all the rest. Check out the before and after. Camera Essentials had an outdated site and wanted to add e-commerce. They wanted a simple, easy to navigate site that looked and felt modern. From a marketing stand point they needed to better highlight their cross-over film to digital products and custom sewn products, to educate customers of their full line and to demonstrate that the products were trustworthy. Soup did all of this by telling their story in the design.

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Logo Challenge: I like to refer to this as a logo harmonization as their previous logo worked embroidered on their products but was not balanced in print or online.

Solution: Unify the C&E to work as one unit, simplify and balance weights. The new Camera Essentials symbol becomes a very simple and timeless abstraction of the letters C&E while becoming a graphic representation of a sewn tag to highlight their custom sewn products.

Web Re-design: The overall look is anchored top and bottom by stitched fabric, again highlighting custom sewn products. The design is a simple, clean, modern grid that features an interactive and rotating product demonstration next to the CE story. Below are 3 feature areas for a new or featured product, custom sewn designs and an offer–we lead with a location photo contest to build testimonial product photography and customer lists.

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A drop down menu built in CSS quickly navigates to all products. Each store/product page was built upon the same grid with a left side navigation with color roll-over. A “Why Buy From Us” Section appears on every product page to highlight strengths and trustworthiness. Each product page has all the information a customer would need to make a purchase.

hot off the press: note-cards for living room realtors

Marketing 101: Stay in contact with your customers and always let them know how much you appreciate their business. As Living Room Realtors business grows so do their branding needs–remember every point of customer contact is an opportunity to grow or re-enforce your brand image.

These 2 sets of flat note-cards will work in any situation, from thanks to here are your keys. The thank you card above uses the Living Room Realtors color palette with an illustration style that is as lighthearted as the agents. While the every occasion card below has an illustrated pattern derived from the logo and re-enforces the brand’s tag-line “get connected” .

welcome home–macgroup.net

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The MacNaughton Group’s new site is live and it is perfect. Another Soup design lab and Site Foresite partnership, along with IDX search features. Looks can be deceiving. Although the site design is clean and modern, the home search features are dialed in while still being very easy to navigate for the novice web user. Here you can find out more about the group, who they are, what they do and how they do it. Or, you can jump right in by clicking, “sell your home” or  ”search for a home”. Rotating testimonials help tell the group’s successful story. While client accounts give The Mac Group the capability to capture and manage leads online.

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This site is all about communication. Click on “word of mouth” and you’ll find a long list of testimonials, along with an area for clients to add their own feedback. Click on “talk to us” and there is an area called, ask the expert, where you guessed it no question is too difficult or mundane.

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But the search for a home page is where the site really shines. First choose between basic and advanced search. You can search by area, zip, RMLS number and even street address. In the advanced we get down to the nitty gritty–including schools. Found a property you like? On each property page there is all the basic information plus clients can: request more information, schedule a showing, select a printable version (flyer), email the property, map location, use a mortgage calculator, see a virtual tour.

Now The Mac Group can capture and manage leads online. Every single property detail page includes a request more information and schedule a showing feature. This feature will prompt the user to provide some basic contact information and allows them to contact TMG directly. It will also send TMG the contact information and inquiry from the interested party for one of TMG’s brokers to follow up; via email. These leads will also be stored in their database for future follow up, archival purposes and export if needed. They can even add notes and track stats on pages viewed and can assign that lead to a specific agent automatically or manually.

for all your sketches and notes

Soup’s first ever scout books are in. A labour of love of sorts that will be given out to clients as a thank you. Meant for all of your list-making, note-taking, sketches and doodles. Printed on recycled chipboard with soy ink by Portland’s own Pinball Publishing. The pocket sized book hosts 32 grid pages-one for every day of the month.

relish 02 beta is live

Trish and I have been discussing the new relish site for almost 2 years. She has put everything she has into relish and the new location. Since the last site, Relish has moved to a new location, now offers interior services, and we’ve re-designed their identity. It was time for the website to catch up to the brand. We started with a landing page that points the viewer toward 3 main points; the online store, interior services, and store events. As always, we continued their brand look, the relish message and voice.

From there you have several places to go. The online store , shown above, navigates the viewer between collections plus tells the story of the product and artisan. 2 offer areas are built in to the top and left navigation fields and are easy to change with the seasons. Since most of the product photography is vendor supplied and there are more than 300 products on the site, we kept it easy to maintain from an internal point of view, while the look of the site stays fresh.

For the interior section, we used the same grid as the store for design consistency and ease of use. The ‘home page’ of the interiors section begins the relish interior story by explaining the point of view on design and gives the viewer an visual overview. From there, the viewer can click on ‘a belief’ and learn more about their philosophy and design services/packages or jump right into their portfolio. On all pages there is a link to make an appointment online and an offer section on left nav.

Soup designed the site and wrote all the content but it was coded by another vendor who specializes in e-commerce sites and still needs work. I wish her and everyone there the best of luck.

soupe du jour—pull the cork

Cork: a bottle shop just launched their latest wine, a 2007 LOVEJOY Zinfandel Topolos Ranch that features an image of the public art piece I created for the Relish building. Cork is located in the same building and has created several wines under their private label that partner with local non-profits that enrich our community. I was honored to be asked to participate in the program—although I would have liked to design the label.

open for business

Well technically they have been open for business for a month but now the signs are up. Interior is complete and upstairs is ready for monthly art shows. The space is as unique as Living Room Realtors is and the Alberta Street location showcases their client’s home for sale. I’d wish them luck but I know they don’t need it.

hot off the press—i heart this business card

Working with Jenelle and Brandy at Living Room Realtors the past 3 months has been such a joy. They both have a great sense of color and style. The cards were printed at my all time favorite portland printer, pinball publishing. I couldn’t possibly imagine working with another printer after pinball. Easy to work with, highly skilled, creative and friendly. By only using soy ink and recycled paper, they care about the environment as do I and Jenelle. In a previous life, I designed way too much direct mail for Amex and AT&T and have been struggling to make good the last 7 years. I’m so happy with the end result.

Living Room Realtor’s mission is living with meaning and believes in building a lifetime of relationships, one person at a time. This was the jump-start for the logo. I focused on connections and ways to illustrate that concept. A series of dots and lines whose pattern forms a circle. Symbolizing people, resources, homes, community, all the details, interior design… Bold, playful graphics and colors with a nod toward mid century modern design. The end result paired with the tag-line, get connected, completes the picture.

We ended up doing 2 versions of the logo since there are so many applications in the real-estate industry with signage. That it just made sense to have 1 color, 2 color and 4 color options.

“reality, memories and dreams overlap”

Recently, I had the privilege of designing a public art piece for the facade of the new Relish location. I wish to thank Trisha Guido owner of Relish, architect Randy Higgens of Vizwerks, the RACC, and Kari Merkl who fabricated the piece and consulted on materials and process.

My artist statement:

My work is an organic response to the interwoven relation between man and nature and is inspired by the colors, forms and energy found within it.

My chosen form is an ordinary flower—some even call it a weed. A universal childhood memory that becomes a metaphor for a child’s lost innocence and joy. To a child, it is a flower full of wishes. But, to an adult, it is a weed that must be eradicated.

I wanted to make the flowers invisibly large and powerful so that their emptiness gives attention to how they hold space. They become templates of the possibility that wind and air filled them once and they have left a mark in your life.

Lastly, this piece also represents Portlanders, who are continuously finding the beauty in what is often perceived as ugly.

hot off the press – identity, gift cards and more

Relish is in the process of moving into a new and much larger space. The extra space will let them offer interior services and an expanded emphasis on natural and eco friendly materials/products. Over the years the Relish brand had been evolving and it was time for the logo and identity pieces to reflect the change. Since Relish had an existing brand that many people knew, we just wanted to update/freshin it up. Shown above is the Grand opening postcards that will be used as invites to all customers/friends and as an in-store hand out to showcase new collection.

Above you can see the revised logo applied to their new gift cards. I kept the existing font but changed the color palette to reflect nature. And created a mark the was symbolic for freedom. The seed ball is visually striking and easily understood, especially with a few rogue parachutes in departure. The process is so analogous to the propagation of an idea that it can’t be contained. The single drifting seed embodies the idea that every seed makes it’s own unique journey and relies on the will of nature to determine where it will land and grow. Graphically, the ball is so ubiquitous that interpretation can be wide and, by no means, literal: It sells the idea of freedom.

We’ve also redesigned the rest of their ID marketing including, business cards, stationary , note cards and signage. Many of the pieces also feature a park illustration that signifies a belief in nature and community. The illustration style is a modern interpretation of Scandinavian design that mirrors some of the lines they carry . With a limited budget all marketing pieces need to more than one job–even business cards. Here the employee business cards pull double duty where an appointment reminder or product notes can be added.

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