Blog Archive: January 1, 2014 - December 31, 2014

We are pleased to announce that Sandy River Realty has a new website designed and built by us. Their old site was out-dated, cluttered, hard to use and not mobile friendly. We feel this new site meets and exceeds the clients expectations. As usual this site is running on our Branch CMS and has the Real Estate app and Blog app installed.

New homepage

Interior page

Rental landing page powered by the Real Estate app

Property list page

Property detail page

This website has actually been live for a month or two, so it's about time that we make this post and show everyone the final result. We worked with the folks over at RLHT to come up with what we both felt was an attractive website that showed off the very area they are protecting.

Before we show off the new website let's recap the goals of this project-

• Provide a design that captures the beauty and essence of the Rangeley area.

• The design must be modern and eye-catching.

• The design must be mobile friendly and use a responsive design to ensure that the website displays correctly in all devices.

• It will need to incorporate a calendar for events.

• Make the ways people can donate more prominent to encourage visitors to do it.

• The best way to show off the area is with good photography and videos, so we think a picture/video gallery would be a good idea.

• Overall the design must remain functional and easy to navigate.

The new homepage

The new homepage below the fold

The new Calendar page powered by the Calendar app

Bringing on a new designer to the team is always exciting. They bring a fresh perspective to everything and often bring some skills that our team might have been lacking. 

Back in May we hired Blair Fenning fresh out of UMF to be our lead designer. Although he is young he brings a lot of design experience and has been a quick study in the nuances of website design. 

Studies and Freelance Work

Blair studied New Media at the University of Maine at Farmington which exposed him to art theory, website design, print, audio and video. While there he did some freelance work that included designing a new logo for a hockey team in Florida and a logo for a UMF department. 

Illustrations

Illustration is one of the new talents that Blair brings to our team. Armed with Adobe Illustrator and a Wacom tablet, Blair can illustrate just about anything. Below is some of his work, including a self portrait. 

Work So Far

In the last two months Blair has been busy on a number of design projects. He has worked on a new website design for Hi-Tech Software, logo, newsletter and print brochure work for a UMF research project, a new website design for the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, new pre-designed templates for us and a booklet for us that showcases our services and work. Most of that work is part of ongoing projects so we can't showcase it yet.

New Talents & New Services

With Blair's talents we are expanding our services into Logo, Illustration and Print design. We are excited about the relationships and design challenges these new services will bring.

Ever wondered whether or not to use serif or sans-serif fonts? Below is an infographic that might help with that decision.

At the beginning of April, Sid Martin, a talented software developer, joined our ranks. Sid was a part of our team a few years ago and we are very happy to have him back. 

Sid will be solely devoted to working on Branch CMS, our hosted website content management system. We have a huge wish list of features to add to Branch so Sid will be very busy for quite some time!

We have finalized a deal with the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce to do a custom designed website for them. We are excited to be involved with another local project. As you may have read we recently launched The Farmington Downtown Association's new website which is a local project as well.

Goals for the New Website

• A new modern look for the website that better represents the Chamber brand and is more visually attractive.
• Make it easier to manage the content for the website.
• More flexibility in how content is displayed on the website.
• Flexibility with the member directory to have different categories.
• Improve member benefits by being able to list more information on each member’s profile page.
• Have a mobile friendly website.
• Tools for members to update their own profile.
• Ability to display and track ads on the website.

Just to give you an idea of the before and after, here is a screenshot of the current homepage and interior page. If you would like to view the current site in more detail click here.

Homepage

Interior page

A while back we made a post about getting the opportunity to do the Farmington Downtown Association's new website. Now we are happy to let everyone know that the new site has gone live! Below are some screenshots and features the new website has.

Features:

• Powered by Branch CMS
• Fully responsive design so that it works on all mobile devices.
• A business directory powered by the Members app that is easily searchable by a visitor.
• Businesses who are members of the association can log in and edit their own business listing.
• They can feature businesses from the business directory on the homepage.
• A calendar of events that is using the Calendar app.

Screenshots:

Homepage

Interior page

Calendar of Events

Members Directory

Overview

Recently we were contacted by Rangeley Lakes Heritage Trust or RLHT for short. They were looking to spruce up their current website. After looking the current website over, we felt that it would take an equal amount of time to make changes to the current site as it would to start over with a fresh design. Starting fresh really opens things up and does not limit you creatively to work within the old design. As with many of our new websites lately, this one will be mobile friendly through responsive design. Below are the goals we are going to accomplish for them.

Goals of the Project

• Provide a design that captures the beauty and essence of the Rangeley area.
• The design must be modern and eye-catching.
• The design must be mobile friendly and use a responsive design to ensure that the website displays correctly in all devices.
• It will need to incorporate a calendar for events.
• Make the ways people can donate more prominent to encourage visitors to do it.
• The best way to show off the area is with good photography and videos, so we think a picture/video gallery would be a good idea.
• Overall the design must remain functional and easy to navigate.

Screenshots of Current Site

Homepage-

Basic interior page-

Overview

We have hosted the Hi-Tech Software website for a few years now. We did not create the current design, but we did build the website and integrate it into Branch CMS. Recently we started talks with them about adding a blog and from there it grew into redesigning the website entirely. A big part of this was the need for a mobile friendly website which we will achieve through responsive design. We are excited to land this project and will be posting screen shots of it when the new version goes live this spring.

Goals of the Project

• Give the website an updated modern look that matches the name “Hi-Tech”

• Improve the navigation so that it is easier for visitors to find what they are looking for.

• Create a mobile friendly site using responsive design

• Add a blog

• Integrate the calendar into new design

• Integrate social networking icons (and pull in a Facebook or Twitter feed if desired)

Screenshots of Current Site

Homepage-

Basic interior page-