The cobbler’s kids.

It is always a tough task creating a website for your own company. We do this all the time for our clients, but as a creative shop we always want to be…well…creative. After many iterations, we decided the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach was best. Get all the good stuff out and available and keep the fluff to a minimum. Really, the problem we were facing was not the look of the site, but the delivery of content.

With that in mind and a blank slate, simplicity became the main goal in the new direction for carbonhouse.com. Building off one of our product sites, venuelements.com, we wanted to keep it uncomplicated, clean and clear, and allow the work to speak for itself. We relied on the typography to create the space, but also improve usability, by providing quick access to all the pertinent information (the good stuff). Taking the single page site concept and amping it up, we used the mootools framework to dynamically deliver the content from our greenhouse content management system and create transitions that aren’t just fluff. These transitions ensure the correct flow of the content to the user and communicate our message.

Design

• Clean, uncluttered design to communicate and focus on work and let the interaction via javascript provide the ‘bling’ or motion
• Single-page format to allow visitors quick access to pertinent information and messaging
• Object-oriented approach to home page spotlight area that showcases recent projects in a less traditional, more unexpected way
• Utilization of sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) to present titles and headers in Helvetica Neue Light, which offers a more sophisticated look than the standardized web font palette.

Technical (all the techy goodness)

• A degradable javascript navigation for users with javascript-disabled browsers allows the site to be navigated while also providing search engine-friendly standard hrefs for our links.
• We utilize AJAX calls with the mootools framework to load page content and project details from our greenhouse CMS, thus avoiding page reload.

Accessibility Benefits

Overall, there are a lot of different ways to handle navigation. By incorporating the degradable javascript within our navigation, we have reduced the possibility of viewers not seeing the site as intended, while increasing the ability of Google and other search engines to find our links.

Author: Taylor Nall

For an in-depth analysis of the social networking success of the Obama campaign, read this excellent article at TheAtlantic.com.

Public relations consultant Harry Hoover has started a wiki with a growing list of Twittering (also an adjective!) journalists.

Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer had a great article recently about the Rupp Arena’s use of social networking tools.

Not only does the arena have a nice website and email list, they started a blog and are using Twitter regularly to post brief updates. During the frenzy of the NCAA tournament especially, this is a fun and handy tool for the Kentucky cognosenti. I signed up and have gotten some good posts—and certainly not all basketball related. For example, yesterday they Twittered with a reminder that, “In case you missed it, the presale for the Hank Willians (sic) Jr. and Lynyrd Skynyrd concert is still going on until 9 am tomorrow morning.” (Bocephus will undoubtedly forgive them for the typo in his last name.)

Jason had some other excellent observations—namely, that Rupp Arena’s marketing department let an intern loose to start both the blog and the Twitter group. Also, the arena perceived the value in building a loyal community following vs. just trying to sell more tickets.

Such use of social networking tools, which are exploding, demonstrates the benefits of experimenting and seeing what can happen. It pays to have a strategy, start with a few tools and put someone in charge who a) gets it and b) will devote the time to keep the content fresh. Social networking takes effort and has to build organically—it does not magically produce results overnight.

Surprisingly, many other larger, commercial arenas are nowhere close to this level of interactivity with their customers and fans. One savvy intern from Kentucky should have his pick of jobs when he hits the market!