visualade
we make great things happen
6285 E Spring St #258 Long Beach, CA 90808 / [email protected] / 562.856.5500
Our approach is centered around the creation of simple, targeted websites and web-based applications that are intuitive, easy to use and focused on the user experience. It’s not an easy task. It means looking beyond what’s trendy and temporary. It means making branding & design share the stage with usability. It means emphasising longevity. It means editing to achieve clarity. It means knowing when less is more. Featured below are just a few examples of our client projects:
Gear Coop
Design / Development / Strategy / Brand Identity
Founded by experienced rock climber Terry Lee in 2009, Gear Coop's initial motivation was to put the right climbing gear in the hands and on the feet of the entire climbing community. Years later, Gear Coop has expanded into a bustling resource for all things outdoors. Their staff is comprised of enthusiasts and experts who know about, can speak to and can guide the customer through any of the uncertainties involved in areas from climbing to fishing to skiing to biking and even how to get into an Eight-Angle Yoga Pose. They don't just sell the products, they know it and they live it - follow Gear Coop on Instagram for proof of that (@gearcoop).
Challenge
Start with a Branding overhaul for the company. Follow that up with a series of Digital Strategy suggestions for the future. Then, roll that all into a new identity package with new signage, a new way of thinking and a brand new Responsive Website. Speaking of, did we mention that Gear Coop's website needed to deliver nearly 100,000 individual products to end users? You'll see what we're talking about when the redesigned website launches late 2014.
Our Work
- Evolved the core mission & vision
- Overhauled the existing Branding
- Created general aesthetics for online store & print collateral
- Completely updated existing site architecture for a more engaging shopping experience
- Strategized Brand & Site launch
- Completed all front-end, Responsive development
- Assisted with back-end (Magento) integration
Mall of America
Design / Development / Strategy / Marketing
Question: What facility in the United States employs 13,000, has more than 500 stores, receives 40 million visitors annually and donates an average of $9 million to deserving charitable organizations? That's right, Mall of America®! If you've never been there, then you probably think it's just another mall... but it's not. This amazing shopping and entertainment venue has been a permanent fixture in Minneapolis for over 20 years. It is responsible for generating nearly $2 Billion in annual economic activity for the state of Minnesota! Also, you can take your kids there to see Yo Gabba Gabba if that's what they're into.
Challenge
Do what most shopping center websites don't do - provide information to the user in a fast, efficient and accessible format. Take 500+ retailer and tenant profiles, mix that with 400+ annual events, integrate a giant 4-level interactive map and then find a home for more than 50 other sections of content - and make that not seem like a daunting navigation task for online visitors! What's more, that content needed to be accessible to any user on any device from anywhere. Additionally, none of our efforts would be sustainable without a robust, but easy to use, Content Management System for MOA's ever-expanding Marketing Team to update with fresh new content on a daily basis.
Our Work
- Website design, development and maintenance
- Concept and Strategy planning and implementation
- Continued evolution of custom CMS platform
- Planning and coordination with MOA Marketing teams and Tourism departments
- Redesign and development of MOA Trip Planner concepts
- Design and development of upcoming Translations website
- Assistance with Email Marketing endeavors
133 Promenade Walk Lofts
Design / Development
Located in the heart of downtown Long Beach, this coveted community of live/work lofts is surrounded by signature restaurants & only steps away from retailers, convention centers & public transits. The property houses some of Long Beach's finest residents and business owners and also hosts big events for the downtown community several times each year. Nestled along the newly completed Promenade Walk, this project is right in the middle of old and new downtown Long Beach.
Challenge
Rethink and re-organize all digital processes for the Home Owner's Association and provide a new public facing website that is not only easy to update but also accessible to residents and patrons of local businesses.
Our Work
- Re-architect existing content
- Design a modern & responsive site that matches the vibrant community
- Front & back end development
- Scalable, custom CMS
- Created miscellaneous utilities to assist in HOA maintenance & communication
Polite In Public
Development / Marketing / Design
Polite in Public began its journey as an artistic photo booth alternative. Through the years, it has transformed itself into a unique & immersive brand experience while simultaneously becoming a powerful marketing engine for some of the World's most famous and well-known companies. Polite in Public is one of our favorite success stories as an agency! When they started, they were unique and one-of-a-kind, but as they grew, so did their competitors. Unfortunately, while many have tried to emulate Polite's successes, none have been able to match the technology, innovation and infrastructure that Polite offers. It's no wonder that their event photographs have been tweeted, facebook'd, instagrammed, texted, emailed and shared billions of times over! Hell, they set up photo booth operations at the Super Bowl, for crying out loud! visualade has been proud to have shared the experience from the earliest days and has helped bring to life the powerful behind-the-scenes engine that is Polite in Public.
Challenge
Polite in Public has never rested on their laurels and has continued to lead & innovate in the photo booth space with visualade as their partner. However, as their business grew in scope and scale over the years, our solutions & support had to grow with it. The site has grown into a complex infrastructure that supports almost every aspect of their business.
Our Work
Through the years…
- Provided Polite in Public with not only development services, but hosting with dedicated database and web servers as well.
- Updated systems and workflows once video and animated gifs became a part of their mix.
- Developed a transactional email system that has sent millions of requested links and files to their event visitors.
- Transitioned to a cloud storage model for their media, which effortlessly supports their millions of existing images and videos, with capacity for the future growth and expansion.
- Developed a robust, custom content management system that has grown along with their needs to not only manage the details of their clients and events but also offer tools that support their scheduling, internal approval processes, asset and employee allocation, and more.
- Built analytics & reporting tools to track engagement and usage and social sharing, recording and making sense of millions of impressions in their system.
- Helped them create widgets so their content can be displayed on third party sites.
- Developed direct upload tools to allows users to publish their photos and videos directly to social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
- Developed a system that allows users to customize their own images at events by giving users the freedom to chose their own digital backgrounds & overlays themselves.
- Experimented with RFID. Using chips to store info so users can simply scan to tell the system where to send photos/videos.
LPA, Inc.
Design / Development
Founded in 1965, LPA is an award winning architecture firm & has been a pioneer in the sustainable building movement. As one of the largest integrated design firms in California, LPA Inc., has a distinct history of expertise in architecture, design and planning. Having completed an impressive 50 LEED® certified projects - with more than 50 additional projects currently in development, surpassing any other architectural firm in the state, LPA maintains an impressive body of work.
Challenge
Showcase LPA's quantity & quality of work & create a solid content hierarchy for a better user experience. At the onset of the project, visualade proposed a relational database system that linked 120 projects with 105 project videos across a dozen different Services and Market Segments. Not only that, our team wanted to link each Service and Market Segment to an LPA team member, of which there were many. Creating a system to manage all of this data in a quick and concise way was what would win over the consideration of LPA Principals. Since then, visualade has challenged itself to help LPA grow online to 3 times the size of when the relationship was first initiated in 2010.
Our Work
- Re-architect existing content
- Design an image driven layout to highlight ever-expanding Project Portfolio
- Front & back end development
- Custom CMS
- News Room, PR utilities and Blog assistance
The Termo Company
Design / Development
Formed in 1933, Signal Hill, CA based Termo Company has provided crude oil & natural gas resources essential to the public & local economy. Through exploration and development, using practices that provide sustainable business, they have become a prominent independent oil and gas company in the western United States. The Termo Company is a forward-thinking organization backed by positive business ethics, concerned about community and environment and driven by independence from foreign oil. They, in our opinion, are what all oil companies should strive to be.
Challenge
Rethink Termo's purpose and function from an online perspective. Examine an alternative approach to how a customer-facing website could look, feel and relay information - abandoning industry standards in place at the time. Build a responsive website, back before responsive websites were a thing.
Our Work
- Re-architect existing content
- Front & back end development
- Responsive website deployment
- Custom CMS
Los Angeles Capital
Design / Development
Los Angeles Capital is a global equity firm engaged in managing assets for leading institutions around the world. The firm is recognized as a pioneer in dynamic equity management, utilizing proprietary technology to engineer equity portfolios that adapt to today's equity market. Furthermore, the firm manages $18.6 billion in assets and is 100% employee owned!
Challenge
LA Capital's clients include large pension funds, endowments, foundations and trusts. Each client portfolio is customized for specific guidelines, benchmarks and risk tolerances with portfolio sizes ranging from $25 million to over $2 billion. The firm also provides sub-advisory services to leading financial institutions advising more than 20 mutual funds and 3rd party funds. Overall, Los Angeles Capital manages over 55 portfolios for clients in the U.S., Europe and Asia. They needed a better, more efficient way to communicate all of this to their current and prospective clients both online and via enhanced Email Communication strategies.
Our Work
- Design & Development of Responsive website
- Implementation of custom CMS solution
- Implementation of Disaster Recovery utilities
- Concept and deployment of Email Marketing strategies
- Development of custom CRM systems
Voxx Analytics
Design / Development / Print
Voxx Analytics is the leader in influence analytics, leveraging Big Data to deliver clarity and precision. It is the first and only “influence analytics” company dedicated to helping global healthcare clients understand, manage, and drive market influence. They offer 3 main products, Lnx Research, Pharma Voxx, & QVoxx focusing primarily on the pharmacautical and biotech industry.
Challenge
Design & build a minimal hub that introduces the company & it’s product within a very short time frame.
Our Work
- Creative direction
- Front & back end development
- Print collateral
Planet Home Living
Design / Development
Planet Home Living is a full service real estate and development company dedicated to the creation of unparalleled living environments, specific to the individual and unique lifestyle of each homebuyer. Their team blends innovation with one parallel vision to create stylish and vibrant living environments that are creatively designed and equally unique.
Challenge
Design and develop a website that showcases all of Planet Home Living's projects and communities to individual home buyers. Make the site easy to access on any device and give the Planet Home team the ability to make quick and easy updates on the fly as project information is available to them.
Our Work
- Creative direction
- Front & back end development
- Social Media aggregation
- Content Management System
South Coast Plaza
Design / Development / Strategy / Marketing
Internationally recognized for its unparalleled retail collection & award winning restaurants, South Coast Plaza defines the luxury shopping experience. Within a short distance from Southern California's famous beaches & resorts, this shopping oasis draws millions yearly from all ages from all parts of the world.
Website
In 2001, South Coast Plaza launched a comprehensive search for an agency partner to rethink and redesign their entire online presence. visualade was selected not only for our clean, sophisticated design aesthetic, but also for the proposed inclusion of a comprehensive CMS and administrative backend, allowing SCP to control virtually all of the content on their site. In 2001, these Content Management systems were extremely rare and very seldom included in retail web design. From 2001 to 2013, visualade remained South Coast Plaza's sole interactive partner and handled all of their web presence and online marketing.
In 2007, visualade began development on an expansive new approach to SCP's web presence. To cater specifically to their strong tourism draw, travel-specific information was split out into a separate tourism site that was localized in several languages, speaking directly to the international market.
The fashion-oriented site catered specifically to Southern California and US consumers and took a giant leap forward in cutting edge design and technology for shopping center websites. The focus was on fashion, showcasing striking photography and minimal, intuitive navigation. Movable, collapsible windows and a fresh take on content space made for a truly unique experience that matches that of the high-end looks featured at the Plaza.
Additional work for SCP up to 2013 included, but was not limited to a new mobile site, a user log-in area on the fashion site that allows users to store information and request email and text message reminders and further expansion of the tourism site.
Content Management
In order to efficiently manage high volumes of content, visualade created a robust and scalable CMS that allowed SCP to update virtually all of the website's content. The CMS was built on a proprietary, rapid-deployment platform that allowed visualade developers to add new sections in minutes and roll out updates to the entire system in one click.
visualade also built a custom file exchange system into the Marketing Portal, allowing SCP to transfer large files from their network to all of their vendors and partners. Their team could create unlimited users, set permissions, manage unlimited folders and process large bulk file transfers with ease.
Email Marketing
Until 2013 visualade designed & maintained SCP's Premiere Club newsletter, which served to elegantly deliver relevant Plaza-related information each month. Over the years, visualade assisted in the growth of their subscription base in Orange County and beyond. Each monthly issue delivered news, events and style reports similar to an online magazine. As a result, these efforts helped SCP to become known as one of Southern California's premiere online fashion and style resources.
The Program Brands - Burton Snowboards
Design / Development
To say it dramatically, the snowboarding community lost 3 amazing brands in 2012. Forum Snowboards, Special Blend and Foursquare were industry and trend leaders in snowboards, hard-goods and soft-goods development - paving the way for those that required both performance and style on the slopes. Burton Snowboards, the parent company of these 3 brands and our valued client, had to make a decision as to whether to continue to maintain these 3 separately or dissolve them, in order to dedicate their resources into the continued evolution of Burton's main product line. With the recession bringing its fair share of pitfalls and economic woes, Burton eventually decided to discontinue each of the 3 lines. visualade was fortunate enough to work with Forum, Foursquare and Special Blend for nearly a decade, both before and during the recession years. Visualade's enthusiasm for helping Burton Snowboard's 3 brands find innovative ways to cut costs, increase efficiencies and enhance B2B communications is something that team members are still proud of today.
Challenge
Three Websites, One Platform - A big challenge early on was planning a way to have three sites share one codeset, database and admin, but still accommodate several different types of products and associated technical information. Prior to initiating design, visualade created complete functionality specs and functional wireframes to ensure that every detail had been planned for. From that, every page was designed with extremely flexible templates that could be modified for each site to have a different look, but conserve on custom code.
- switched to a PHP platform that could utilize open-source code
- utilized one database, admin and code set for all three sites to reduce cost
- built a comprehensive admin to allow the client to merchandise products and change out site graphics
- assisted with product photography
- concepted and built a social media manager, allowing Marketing members the ability to compile and aggregate all Team Riders social network activities for display on parent website
To enhance usability and interactivity on the frontend, visualade created a robust "finder" that pulled in the styling from all three sites and managed different sets of data associated with their lines of hardgoods and outerwear. To find the perfect fit, users could sort and filter product using custom filters designated by the client. For the outerwear brands, visualade also expanded on the concept of a group landing pages and created "outfit builders" that allowed users to mix and match jackets and pants.
Content Management
The Program realized how important it was to keep their sites updated with fresh content throughout the season. visualade took the concept of the CMS and admin even further, adding new ways for the client to update almost all site images, visuals, colors and backgrounds. The product finder pages were built to be so flexible that the client could lay out exactly how they'd like to space and merchandise their products.
Path to Purchase
Since the Program did not utilize direct B2C sales (ecommerce), guiding the user to an online purchase was directed to their retail partners. visualade created a feed system for their online retail partners that allowed them to post daily, automated inventory feeds. Users could now find out where to purchase each item on the website with a direct link to the retailer's product page, thanks to live stock quantity communications from the retailer to the brand.
Long Beach Magazine
Design
Long Beach Magazine served the needs of local residents and businesses, both in and around California's 6th largest city; a city with a diverse and expansive footprint. With so many interesting people, amazing weekly events and stories to tell, Long Beach Magazine provided its readers with monthly publications delivered to their doorstep or available for purchase at any number of local retailers.
Challenge
Overhaul every feature and aspect of the magazine, to include workflow behind the scenes. visualade embarked upon a complete redesign of the magazine, starting with the redesign of the logo and branding elements and ending with the layout of all 84 pages and the selection of every color and font. In addition to redesigning the magazine, visualade sought unique methods for improving upon the Ad Management workflow for the dozens of ad spots featured throughout, resulting in more efficient workflow for the LBM team.
Our Work
In addition to redesigning the entire publication, visualade also produced 24 publications following the redesign - greatly reducing required workload for the LBM team.
- Logo, Branding & Identity Redesign
- Creation of templatized workflow for all printed magazines going forward
- Selection of all paper and stock from front cover to back cover
- Concepted new methodologies to further monetize Ad Streams
- Redesigned Press Kit and printed collateral
- Produced 2 years' worth of magazines following redesign