Building a brand and selling surfboards…
57design has been working with Surftech for years. Our last redesign of the site, however, gave us a chance to add some really cool functionality.
Archive for September, 2009
Rebranding… Big Designs has gone from “Sparking your Interest” to Shocking the crap out of you! Don’t ground yourself when welding kids… it HURTS!
It’s so hard to design for yourself! As I type this, I still haven’t settled on a site design.
As you can tell, I’ve developed the site around WordPress. I decided to use it for a variety of reasons… Few of which, is that it seems to be slowly becoming a huge standard with a great following of designers and programmers, and one I’m becoming forced to learn about. Also, I rarely use it, as most of my clients come to me for completely custom built sites not based on any “platforms”.
However, with that being said… more and more clients are looking for a more standard CMS for their web sites (a friend of mine developed a custom CMS I’ve used for years, that was KILLER… but, as I’ve said before, what the client wants, the client gets). So, like any good boy, I’ve decided to experiment a bit with seeing how “custom” I can make WordPress work for me. But there’s a dilemma I’m having…
For anywhere from $30-$99, one can just purchase a really nicely designed template for WordPress, plug it in, do some minor mods, and you’ve got yourself a really nice site! It’s this sort of thing, I expect will put me out of work in the near future… but I digress. If someone has done all the hard work, of developing these templates – why not use one myself!? The obvious answer, would be – I’m a designer, make my own to show my ability… right? But, why not use my portfolio to show what I can do? Why spend the hours beating on code I don’t know, to create something that provides the function I can get for $30? I bill between $40-$65 an hour… it’s cost prohibitive to create my own.
At any rate… as I said. I’m still undecided on design. I’ll probably end up with a hybrid of both. I hope that doesn’t come off as lazy. (?) And, I hope you the viewer, albeit – friend, prospective client, or employer find whatever I have done, to be appealing.
A branding and web site project for a company trying to resolve the B2B2C triangle that so many companies struggle with. BrandGo’s model works for just about any business that manufactures a product for the masses, but the heart of the company lies in the action sports industry.
I’m pretty sure this is the best product introduction EVER
The 2010 Buell Blast
Currently available for freelance
Projects are done & itching for more... click on contact, and hire me!
