Following the exhibition, the presenter became a permanent fixture in Cornwall Terrace’s on-site marketing suite and was received so well it was decided that the presenter should be developed for the web.

CHALLENGE
The exhibition’s presentation needed to be adapted to the web environment with more traditionally intuitive design and navigation. The new design and build would need to change the way the images were treated to one that was optimised for the web environment and still look as impressive on computer screens of all sizes.

SOLUTION
The large watercolour illustration is used to navigate through the list of properties available. The optimised Flash website created, allowed for scalable window sizes and smooth behind the scenes image buffering, the complete experience which was updatable as the development of the properties continued.

RESULT
The new site is a seamless, true to original, web user experience that plays homage to the classical style of the properties on offer

Their challenging brief was to develop a site that allowed flexibility in how work is presented via the existing database, show a wide range of projects in a cohesive way and reflect the firm’s reputation for design excellence by delivering a clean, elegant website tailored to their exact needs.

To display the vast amount of projects and areas in as clear and simple a presentation so as not to detract from the beauty and complexity of the featured images, we designed a sleek and fluid interface, which is driven by the existing but modified database. A ColdFusion-built admin system allows the client the requested flexibility: background, text, and link colours are customizable per each page; headings are positioned over the images by way of coordinates system; and any supporting documentation via a pdf or word doc can be uploaded as needed. Other features include a fall-mirrored HTML site, breadcrumb navigation, and Direct Flash page linking.

Gold Winner, Horizon Interactive Awards
Outstanding achievement award, Interactive Media Awards

One of the challenges was the tight deadline which involved concept design, photo shoot of the airport and printing of the brochure in Beirut within a fortnight.

The brochure was successfully designed and produced well within the time frame. It was presented exclusively to dignitaries and officials at the grand opening ceremony in May which included the guest of honour, President Hosny Mubarak. Thereafter, the Ministry as well as the design and construction consultants plan to reprint the piece for further promotional usage.

Dar Guidelines
Our brief was to refresh the corporate brand guidelines of this global conglomerate celebrating its 50th anniversary via one of their main communication pieces – a printed, corporate profile. As the profile would be used in conjunction with existing collateral in proposal/qualification submissions, a visible relationship between the “next 50 years” and existing collateral needed to be conveyed.

Company Profile
The Next 50 Years The brief was to originate a design style for a new Corporate Profile which would showcase their wide areas of activities and expertise in a visually stimulating and exciting manner.

Services Brochure
The Built Environment This 32 page profile showcases the firm’s wide area of activities – designing projects as varied as city-wide water supply systems, airports, bridges, hospitals, hotels, industrial plants, and telecommunications – in a visually stimulating yet unobtrusive manner allowing the focus to remain on projects.

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We engineered and developed a grouped, dynamic, Flash and XML-based applications, which allow users to create self-running or navigable slideshows. These grouped slideshow presentations house and show images, .swf files and .flv video files and feature over 30 templates with various sized- and placed combinations of images and video files. The final product comprises two parts: the Editor, which is installed on individual machines to create and edit presentations, and the Player, a stand-alone application, that runs the actual presentation, which is burned to disk and plays on any PC.

Southern Space is a development company specialising in aspirational new homes for sale. Established in 2005 as a subsidiary of Southern Housing Group, their aim is to develop innovative living space for all.

Our aim is to help them achieve their goals with a well designed website.

The new site’s focus will be to help promote their developments and the company’s position in the market place.

Where to next?

In 2010, we’re entering a new era of digital and social media marketing – one based on information, rationalisation, and resolve. Websites and digital applications are a cost effective and feature rich. Most importantly you can directly measure their success… How much impact a website has in selling a property? How successful is a campaign? Defining the “R” in ROI is a valuable tool in managing marketing spend, as it relates to business goals and performance indicators specifically.

For a digital campaign to work it needs to make a maximum impact, this could come from the development itself or from the way in which the presentation is geared to penetrate the market.

The property industry creates, markets and sells spaces to and for people. These spaces are designed to suite people’s lives, a place to live, a place to work. It’s no secret that we are becoming more and more accustomed to reading our news online and managing our money via the Internet.

How do we harness the power of this medium for the property sector? Instead of relying solely on the more traditional and somewhat formulaic print brochures. Consider teaser website campaigns which have a huge advantages (in amercing your audience in the property but with the advantage of video, virtual 3D simulations and sound it’s now even more reason to consider how your brand fits in) in addition websites and mobile phone apps have the advantage of tracking the interest in a development or space, measuring these numbers against the overall marketing budget and the size of the development is a powerful marketing tool that you simply don’t get with a printed brochure.

But why stop there, if digital is measurable, what of Social Media? Even though much of Social Media is free, not forgetting the cost of resources, engagement as it relates to employees, time, equipment, and opportunity cost (what they’re not focusing on or accomplishing while engaging in social and digital media). What does a property developer want with twitter? Well, that depends on the development, many don’t have the resources or PR capacity to warrant Social intervention.

We’ve become more accustomed to the digital environment and our buildings are becoming smarter and more environmentally friendly and “teched up”, it’s time our marketing does too. Consider the added benefit to the consumer if a mixed-use development had a community website to help both the managers and the occupants of the building. Much like other helpful services, this kind of added value helps build a developer’s brand from those occupants who have benefited directly.

When we truly grasp the ability to define action and measure it, we can expand the impact of new media beyond the profit and loss. We can adapt business processes, inspire ingenuity, and more effectively compete for the future.

Rife’s design presents the transport, planning, urban design and economics consultancy’s range of disciplines and services offered in a clear, creative and modern way.  A key element was implementing new ‘real-life’ photography of Colin Buchanan’s own staff at work to highlight the organisation’s personal and people-centric approach.  At the same time Rife ensured that the new look and feel reflected existing communications material in order to maintain brand consistency.

“Rife has created a modern and progressive new design for Colin Buchanan’s website that presents our varied disciplines and services in a way that is visually attractive and easy for visitors to navigate.  This is enhanced by the creative photography of our staff – the company’s most important asset – which lends the new site both a personal and professional feel,” comments Adele Jacques, marketing and quality manager at Colin Buchanan.

Rife also introduced a bespoke Content Management System (CMS) that gives Colin Buchanan the means to update the website content itself as a tactic to continually engage visitors.  Simple and intuitive, the CMS enables users to create, edit and delete pages, images and sections as required.

Lloyd Colling, creative director at Rife, explains:  “We aimed to introduce a fresh and innovative design concept that would help Colin Buchanan showcase its achievements in order to drive business.  But it is also important to get the balance right between a website that stands out from the crowd and a communications tool that is well-suited to the industry in which it operates.”

About Colin Buchanan
Colin Buchanan is a leading transport, planning, urban design and economics consultancy founded by Sir Colin Buchanan in 1964. The company remains true to its independent roots, offering impartial and objective advice and excellent design solutions to a wide variety of clients. It prides itself on the integrity and professionalism of its staff, which is key to the business, to provide a bespoke service to its broad spectrum of clients.