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The Cobbler's New Shoes
What we learned while developing our new site
Embarking on developing a new website for BrandAmplitude.com evoked a special kind of anxiety. After all, the cobbler is judged by the shoes he wears on his own feet! Happily, once started, the process was not as stressful as expected. Here's some of what we learned along the way.
1. Decide What to Say
We based our story on a metaphor inspired by a client who remarked how Brand Amplitude stands apart, like a black jelly bean. This made us smile, as we like to think of our selves as distinct from other branding and insight firms.
2. Choose a Look and Feel
We looked at many other sites, explored existing templates and themes and agreed on what we liked. We decided we wanted a clean, content-rich site, that suggested we were smart and also fun to work with. Colorful images would add the right amount of whimsy.
3. Learn to Code
Just kidding, but we did start out thinking we would do-it-ourselves. This proved to be a good experience as exploring Joomla, Wordpress and Java made us more educated buyers. It also convinced us there was no way we could get the results we wanted ourselves.
4. Choose the Right Partner and Be Accessible
From three options, we chose our partner, Joomla Design Studios based on their experience. It turned out to be a great decision. Frequent interaction allowed them to come up with some good ideas we would never have come up with on our own.
5. Recognize the work is never done
Our new site premiered February 3, We think it does a great job of showcasing our capabilities and our perspectives. We intend to keep it fresh with new ideas and enhancements.
Our advice to others thinking of embarking on a similar process is to just do it. Designing our new site turned out to be an opportunity to clarify who we are and what we offer. It was a great experience.
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