Equality Designs Blog

Event Web sites

Administrator — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 02:32:05 +0000

We recently released a event template for Web sites. It all runs through Wordpress and is highly configurable. It makes raising funds and managing/promoting an event much easier. Here are two examples.

The BellingJam

North West Skim Tour

Multimedia Extravganza

Administrator — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:19:34 +0000

Multimedia projects are an easy way to captivate your online audience and keep bringing users back to your Web site on a regular basis.

Recently one of our clients BuildStrong Productions teamed up with Funner and Wildcard Entertainment to promote a show for Seattle hip-hop artists Macklemore and Mad Rad.

BuildStrong brought one photographer and two videographers to the show.

This provided content for the BuildStrong Web site for days after the show, which kept bringing people back to the Web site that either went to the show or others that missed it.

After the show: photos and review

A photo gallery and a “time lapse video” were released on the BuildStrong Blog. This post was also released on social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook.

VIEW THE BLOG POST

After the show: Video 1

The Funner / WildCard crew released the first video from the night on the blog. This was pushed out on social networks again.

VIEW THE BLOG POST

After the show: Video 2

The Funner / WildCard crew released the second video from the night on the blog. This was pushed out on social networks again and through the bands that performed.

VIEW THE BLOG POST

Page views on the BuildStrong Web site jumped by 20 to 30,000 page views a day just because of the new content. By creating unique content more people know about the brand and the chances of people returning to the site have increase greatly.

Basic blog and photo gallery

Administrator — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:59:42 +0000

We were approached by the owners of The Peace Bus to create a simple blog and photo Web site that they could update by themselves.

We took a photo of the bus to create the logo image with a Fisheye lens and then created a really simple design.

After that we made the blog the home page and created a gallery that resembles Flickr (they really wanted their own Flickr site).

Screen printing

Administrator — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:54:57 +0000

The Equality Designs staff has a long background in screen printing. At one point Equality Designs was even it’s own clothing line.

We can design a t-shirt design from scratch or take a spec or photo and turn it into a design that pleases you.

Here are some sample t-shirts we have created over the years.

Intergrating a blog into an exsisting Web site

Administrator — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:48:21 +0000

We were approached by Acorn Project a band based out of Bellingham, WA to simplify/upgrade their Web site.

They liked the style and concept, but they wanted to be able to update the Web site without relying upon a Web developer.

So, we took their exsisting Web site and slowly started intergrating a content managment system (CMS).

The site is still being built out and moved over, but the band is able to add new shows and update their home page whenever they want now.

Community Web sites

Administrator — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:11:27 +0000

In the summer of 2008 Equality Designs took on the the project of creating a community Web site. The concept was to create a skimboarding Web site. Bring skimboarders together in the Pacific northwest and hopefully expand the Web site to a larger audience. The domain name Skimboardculture.com was purchased and the concept started to come alive.

We first went out and took photos locally in Bellingham and gathered photos from past trips all the way back to 1999 from local riders. We created the logo, icons, design for the site based off the photos.

Once we had some artwork together we created a basic magazine Web design. Lots of white space and a simple and a low-image design to ensure the site loaded quickly for the amount of content and scripts that would be loading on the Web site was key.

We then installed blog, forum and a photo gallery software and redesigned each product to fit into the general design of the Web site. After that we just started loading content that was written ahead of time to fill the site. Last the RSS feed for each product (blog, photos, forum) were pulled into the home page.

The physical Web site was finished, but that is the easy part. Without users the Web site wouldn’t really function. As the content was created and posted to the Web site we linked up the RSS feeds to Twitter accounts and started reposting content on the Skimboarding Facebook fan page.

Traffic started spiking as the social networking community started to take notice. At that point we used those tools to send Q&As to prominent skimboarders and reposted them on the Web site.

The site was handed off to the staff who we worked with to create the Web site. The Web site updated at least three times a week and there is an active forum, which has helped the traffic increase monthy.

The Web site has released in July of 2008. That month the site got a total of 2,274. A year later the site is averaging 101,664 a month.

Combining social networking tools with custom features, so people can actively submit and post content will help your Web site grow. Skimboard Culture is now self sufficent and makes back Web hosting fees with Google Ads and advertisements.

Project complete.

Virtual Magazines

Administrator — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:30:11 +0000

As Web developers we have played around with Flash virtual editions of the magazines, PDF viewers and a lot of ways to read/display content on the Web. “Virtual Magazines” is the name for this project.

“Virtual Magazine” concept is a useful tool. Here is how we have utilized this concept.

Custom X bodyboards approached us to create a “special” advertisement that would display their full catalog of bodyboards.

So we created a basic Flash page viewer:

VIEW THE PROJECT

That is the most recent version. We have been making new calenders annually for the company since 2005. It has been a reocurring fun project.

We also created a similiar product for Akwa Industries a company based on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

VIEW PROJECT

We expanded this concept for a company called Safeair that creates (hand drawn) airline safety phamphlets. We created these phamplets for over 150 airplanes and packaged it all on one disc. The company distributed the sample Flash catalogs via mail.

The whole project is not available online, but here is a screen grab to give you a better idea.

Flash Promotional Game

Administrator — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:57:17 +0000

A local promotional company wanted to do something different with their promotions for a band playing at the Wild Buffalo. They send me a spec for the flyer and I took some of the art and created a basic Flash game based on the concept for the show.

Take a look:

Welcome to the Equality Designs Blog

Administrator — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:32:30 +0000

This has taken me awhile to get around too, but I finally setup a blog on Equality Designs to start archiving all of the freelance work I have done in the past couple years.

My name is Matt McDonald and I founded Equality Designs in 1998 when I was high school. I took a basic Web design course and started making Web sites for artists in the local area.

I moved to Bellingham, Washington in 2000 to attend Western Washington University. Originally I was going to school to become a graphic artist, but somewhere along the way I switched to the journalism and computer science combo.

Seven years later I am running my own design business and working for The Bellingham Herald as the Online Project Manager and IT Supervisor.

The Internet is my playgound and I hope you enjoy the information about Web development, photography and other projects I post on this blog.

Matt McDonald | Equality Designs CEO