Today marks a new beginning, not only for this site, but for Blue Flavor as well. In the last few months we’ve undergone some major changes. From a founder leaving to a re-dedicated focus on what we do best, design, we’ve been shifting to what we think will ultimately be better for our company and our clients.
That change can in many ways be seen in this new site.
Striving to be different
One of the primary goals of our redesign was to do something different. We wanted to create an interesting, engaging and fun site, while keeping it simple enough that someone who just wanted to contact us (one of the main things people do on our site) or look at screenshots could do so easily.
Our site has always been about connecting our audiences (primarily the web community and potential clients) to the people that make up Blue Flavor, and we’re still looking to do that. However, we wanted to try something that, for us anyway, marked a departure from the same-old, same-old.
We’ve been finding the “Web 2.0” look a bit stale and we’ve also seen so many portfolio sites doing the same things over and over again. We’re hoping to take the things that work and mix them up with some new ideas.
So, in some ways we wanted to be new and bold. This is reflected in the change in color palette, the worn-ish background and our new way of presenting our work with the posters. In other ways we wanted to be classic and simple. The layout, for example, is pretty straight-forward. In fact, swap the background and lighten the palette and you’ve got a whole new look and feel based on a pretty solid grid-based layout and simple typographic choices.
Of course, we wanted to carry that “people-based” personality through, so we kept the photos and tried to have a bit of fun with our about pages. We put much more focus on our clients and client work, as opposed to putting the focus on what we do. We realize this is a bit of a risk, but then again, most of our potential clients either already know who we are and what we’re about, or are willing to explore.
If you look at our new homepage, for example, you’ll see that we focus mainly on our clients, with a case study and testimonials. And of course you’ll see our big client poster.
So, yeah…We’re using posters to illustrate our new work. We did that to have some fun and potentially provide a hook that’s a bit more compelling than a screenshot (Of course, we’ve got loads of those as well). Again, we wanted to experiment with posters as a way to be unique. We are having lots of fun with them, and plan to continue to do so — we hope y’all enjoy them too.
Something you can’t readily see here is an entirely new Django-based back end. It’s powered by our new CMS framework Savoy, which is being open-sourced and launching soon! It’s been a real pleasure working with Savoy and Django. Though Savoy is a bit rough in spots, it’s amazingly powerful and surprisingly easy to use. More to come on that in the next few months.
I could go on about all the little things that’re new about the site, but I think it’s better experienced. We’ve done quite a bit of work over the last few months and we’re pretty happy with the result. We still have some work to do and a few new pages and features to role out, so bear with us if you hit a rough patch.
Take a look and feel free to let us know what you think!
Nice work guys. Looking forward to what you do in the future!
It looks really nice! I like how different it is. I agree, the Web 2.0 look is getting old. The only thing I think I don’t like is the comments tab. It makes it difficult, at least for me, to go back and reference the article.
The little robots are so cute too!
Naomi - Thanks, and I get your feeling on the comments tab, but that’s kind of done by design. It separates the discussion a bit from the article itself and will hopefully get people thinking about more about the comments they post. That’s the idea anyway.
I love the new look. The posters are great. A person who doesn’t read alot of copy might find it hard to get to the services page. The home page looks great, although on a first glance people who aren’t aware of Blue Flavor might think your focus is illustration… Other than that, bravo!
When I loaded up the site today I was taken back and did a nice little double take if I was on the same site. Lovely redesign, especially love the home page and the background texture.
I did get a chuckle out of the About page with the hover on the team picture. Great redesign for sure, cheers!
@dylan - Yeah, there is some risk there, re: illustration but we thought that was an acceptable one to do something unique.
I’ve been a fan for some time and I really like that you are mixing things up a bit.
Savoy eh? That’s super exciting! I’m really looking forward to taking that for a spin.
Keep up the nice work, the site looks great!
Lookin’ great! The new look is superb and the simplified navigation is refreshing. Keep up the good work.
The new site looks great. I Love the simplicity. I’m personally getting sick of the cartoony 2 point zero look(I wish my clients would soon), and this is a refreshingly different step forward. What would you label this design direction? =D
Thanks!
@Brian - what would I label this direction? Good question, I’m stumped, which is probably a good thing. How about un-label-able? :)
I enjoy the new site design and feel. I particularly like the way you handle the comments with a new tab. Allows a quick toggle to the article, but less scrolling to see comments.
Nice work to all involved!
Loving the new design! It’s nice to see more and more sites shedding the Web 2.0 look and taking chances.
The use of posters in the portfolio is inspired. Very nice touch!
Looking forward to Savoy, if you need any user testing I’m your man.
Looking sharp! Great work guys.
Wow, looks dope, guys!
Love the blatant struggle between the background image and the navigation bar at first glance. I’m so glad you put up the goofy team picture on hover - classic. The content frame, with hanging images is also a nice touch.
All around, stellar look. Congratulations!
It was great coming in here today to see the new design. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I can say for sure that I was surprised!
The new design is bold. Trying to come up with something new is not easy. Did you look for feedback on the new design from anyone outside Blue Flavor before launch?
I thought the posters worked great as well, but not too sure why you wouldn’t say something directly about Blue Flavor on the homepage :)
@Matthew - re: the bar? That is something Kevin and I went over quite a bit. We finally found something we liked, and yes, we see that “struggle” as well. :)
@Ove - I got a bit of outside feedback, and of course I’ve got three amazing designers in Jeff, Tom and Kevin right there in the office. As far as not saying something “directly about” us on the homepage, we did that very, very purposefully. We wanted to focus on visual interest, our client work and easy links to get to that about info. I can see how that might be viewed as a risk, but I see the homepage as a jumping off point, I don’t really expect most of our visitors to read much of it. :) And yeah, we did quite a bit of talking to our existing clients about why they chose us, etc. before making these decisions.
WOW! Looking pretty damn awesome guys! This site is sweet.
Hi Blue Flavorites!
Congrats on the new design and launch. I’ve been excited to see what you would do.
I love the posters—and the idea of bringing a real-world / physical component to the web / virtual design process. Are you printing each poster for the client and yourselves?
You found an interesting and creative way to bring photographs into the design while not making the design about the photos themselves - I like this too.
Well, I must say that if Blue Flavor didn’t carry the reputation it does, I would’ve clicked away from this site immediately. The entire header through me off the way the background, logo, and navigation all seem to contradict each other. I’m not a huge fan of the desktop-style background either. But to each his own. I’ll give y’all credit for having the balls to go this route in the first place.
The design looks fantastic but I think you broke some links. I was trying to get back to the excellent BlueprintCSS 101 article that I bookmarked two days ago but ran into a 404. It took some digging but I did find what I was looking for.
I really preferred the OLD design. Much more colourful. It would be nice if it was made publicly available.
Nice work folks. It’s very different - both from the old site and other web firm sites - in a good way. Fun to explore and your attention to detail is amazing!
Hi, longtime silent reader. Respect you guys and your work, but honestly got to side with Gordon on this one. The new design - especially from the perspective of a potential client seems a bit bland and even confusing. It’s still better than many sites, but I preferred the old design. (i’m just an old man and opposed to change)
@Zach - I’m actually glad a few people don’t like it, it means I’ve made a statement with the design. Bland though? Not something I would have thought anyone would call it. :)
I do see how it can be slightly confusing, with the posters, but the information architecture and much of the content is actually greatly simplified. And we want people to dig a bit, we want to work with people who are engaged and willing to take a bit of time to get to know us. That might sound strange but we usually do our best work with those kinds of clients - many of whom have expressed very good things about the new design.
And don’t get me wrong, I liked the old design too. I just felt like it was kind of…well, similar to everything else out there. I really wanted something different and some what challenging yet not too confusing or hard to get into. I think, for the most part, I’ve accomplished that. I’ve also got a few things in the works (a screenshot gallery, for example) that should make it even easier for some people to get a handle on the kind of work we do.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I hope the design doesn’t keep you from coming back. :)
Oooh, new design, sweet! So when I clicked the link in my feed reader to this article, the first thing I noticed was the header, and I thought, hey, that looks like a koru symbol from the Maori people (native islanders from New Zealand). Seeing as you immediately mentioned “new beginnings” I am assuming that was very intentional. I love it. Subtle, yet re-enforcing what you are writing about. Brilliant.
Since I doubt the meaning is common knowledge I’ll quickly explain for other readers. The koru symbol is taken from the new growth fern. The silver fern is NZ’s emblem, so the fern is very important to the culture here. It means growth, new life and beginnings, and is therefore perfectly suited to a post about a new design and new focus.
Keith, I love the tabbed views for articles and comments. I really like having comments separate because it allows me, at a glance of the scroll bar, to estimate the length of the article and gauge time without comments changing the page length. The tabbed idea isn’t something I have seen often, nice. For those needing to reference the article while they respond, what about a tab at the bottom as well?
Good work, now to poke around!
Ok, I’ve come back a couple times and I’m going to take back my comment about the comments tab. It’s growing on me and now I think I’m liking it. It is useful for reading the previous comments without too much scrolling.
I like the idea about adding the tab to the bottom that Philip had too. Or what about putting the comment form at the top instead of the bottom? That way you might have the best of both worlds. Less scrolling, easily clicking back and forth to reference article.