One great thing about what we do as brand and interactive designers is the variety of clients and projects we get to work on, each very different needs, goals, and audiences. One day it’s a brand and collateral aimed at investors or a website for a Japanese bistro, the next it’s a complicated website for a large engineering firm. Enter Chatwin Engineering.
With over 25 years as a leading engineering and planning firm in BC, Chatwin hired Industrial Brand to completely revamp its online presence to more accurately reflect who they are as a company. Their old website had become dated, cluttered, and ineffective. The outdated technology was cumbersome and the content wan’t easily updatable. It was time for a fresh start.
After engaging our discovery process, which looks past assumptions and digs deeper into the real situation and goals, we determined that they required a site they could easily manage themselves for use not only as a marketing tool, but for recruitment and communications too. So we developed a project plan that included the creation of a CMS-driven site (in this case Drupal) with an aesthetic emphasis on simplicity, intuitive information access, and messaging that better told the story of the Chatwin brand to their unique audience.
Considering their audiences’ needs and what it is that a multi-disciplinary engineering and planning firm does, it was also important to use the site to emphasize their work. We created a modern, clean portfolio system separated by their three main areas of expertise—civil, building, and environmental—with a gallery of rotating images and case studies of their highlighted projects.
Engineers do love to produce lots of words and data, so by our launch date, the site was populated with copious amounts of information and contiues to grow. Thankfully our well-considered information architecture and site structure, which included a powerful serach tool, multi-functional footer and intuitive navigation system, a user can access any of the content with two mouse clicks.
Our entire team deserves congratulations, Steve Mynett in particular, who worked very hard with our developers on this project to see it through to a successful launch. Now that it’s complete, the Chatwin Engineering website appears simple to me, betraying all the work that went into it’s design. I think most websites that use smart interaction design thinking to organize and present complicated concepts and content fall into this category. Engineers can be a picky bunch, but in this case were terrific to collaborate with and work for, and they are thrilled with the new online presence and interactive tools we created for them.
Check out the new Chatwin Engineering website and tell us what you think!
Tags: Chatwin Engineering, industrial-brand, interaction design, Interactive, Vancouver, website
