2014 has been a year of growth and change, and while we were working away on many client projects, we started to notice that our brand, our look, was starting to feel a bit dated.
Our brand, logo, and website had served us since early 2009 in its last version. That’s a long time in Internet years. The new work we are doing for our clients is pretty competitive across the industry, and our excitement grew as we keep building some terrific looking and great working websites. We love it when design and development are working together the way they should! So in comparison, we started to see that we need to address our own “wardrobe.”
Cleaning The Closet
The whole process was both exciting and uncomfortable as we considered doing a big update. Sincerely, it gave us a new appreciation and perspective on client work. The team at BWD rallied, even with a loaded work schedule, and we began to make some plans for doing some branding work. It was a natural progression as we developed a new logo, to expand that into a more modern user interface.
Some of our considerations for building the new site were based on trends in the market, our website stats (who was looking at what), where we felt the business was growing, and how to practice what we preach.
We wanted a robust website that was flexible and met the needs of the team, mainly serving as a great example and foundation for presenting best practices that clients can follow. We wanted a place to post our latest work and brag about our clients’ brands and businesses. We are not huge “bloggers,” but definitely have a voice and some deep understandings about the web development process that we wanted to share. The love for what we do comes from the experiences we have had working with some really great clients, and we hope that comes through.
The web world changes dramatically and design can be a fickle beast to follow around, so we really wanted to focus on building a great foundation, rooted in the experience of the past, not looking too techno, but certainly able to go toe to toe with other leaders in the market place. Ultimately, we have a great new base to build on that we can easily change and update and add to as time marches on; this is really what the web should be.
The Outcome
Well, you are looking at it now. Our colors have changed as well; that was a strategic move to set us apart from the old brand. The logo is refreshed, more retro-modern, stepping us into a little more current look, but still fits us. The website highlights a flexible work space, so we can all contribute and expand and continue to tell our story. The tale that unfolds is that the collective team that makes BWD is aware of the market place, trends, what other are doing, what best practices are, and that we can live and thrive in a global market place and economy… all from Bigfork, Montana.
Have some feedback? Place your comment, and we will respond! It’s an open forum and we are happy to share, both perspective and experience.