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The Imagination Factory > News & Articles > site revamp

News: Inspiration or Desperation?

October 15th, 2016 by Ted Bailey

time for change Change happens for usually one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation.

Clients wanting to have us design that first website are generally inspired, sometimes desperate to finally get online. Re-designing an existing site is often an act of desperation over a failed site or sometimes is inspired by positive changes in the clients’ business.

BTW, we look at a bad website not necessarily as a failure, just an educational experience that might not have turned out so well.
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Site Update: Meyer Music

August 29th, 2016 by Ted Bailey

IFIblog_MMI_sm Meyer Music first came to the Imagination Factory back in 2005 to have their first web site built. Over the years there were variety of changes and enhancements to benefit their customers, but mobile technology accelerated and in 2014 it was ready for a substantial overhaul to make it more mobile responsive and set the foundation for future enhancements.

Meyer Music has completed revamped its internal operations and has added another physical location, so this site update integrates the public facing web site to a secure portal where Meyer Music clients may not only rent musical instruments (as with the old site), but also access their account balances and pay online. While the site aesthetics haven’t changed a great deal, there is more horsepower underneath the hood.

This latest update meant not only getting the various computers to play together nicely and securely, but to make the aesthetics match as closely as possible across different computers, operating systems and applications.

Come visit the NEW Meyer Music site, today.

Site Redesign: Kawasaki Precision Machinery

August 22nd, 2016 by Ted Bailey

IFIblog_KPM2_sm Kawasaki is a leading manufacturer of hydraulic systems and components. Kawasaki’s technological leadership and customer-centered philosophy is well-known around the world.

Originally designed back in late 2009/2010, the KPM-USA site had served this client well, BUT was showing its age a bit. Built before tablets & smartphones became a predominate method for surfing the web, this site needed both a facelift and some structural changes to make it more mobile responsive as well as reflect Kawasaki’s industry leadership. Besides mobile-responsiveness, the new site adds an interactive distributor locator for North & Central America as well as a private distributor only area.

To see the new look and capabilities, visit the NEW Kawasaki USA site.

Site ReDesign: Kentwood Office Furniture

July 14th, 2016 by Ted Bailey

IFIblog_KWD3_sm Although many of our website solutions are built to serve our clients well for many years, technology continues to march forward providing new options and marketing channels of which to take advantage. At a minimum, we suggest revisiting the site design every five years or less.

Kentwood Office Furniture is the Midwest’s specialist in high quality remanufactured, used, and new office furniture and is well aware of rapidly changing environments. As a result, Kentwood Office and the Imagination Factory takes a look every 2-3 years at the site and how best to leverage the new technology and aesthetics in their site.

For your own closer inspection, visit the NEW Kentwood Office site.

Site Launch: Facilities Resource Group

April 23rd, 2016 by Ted Bailey

IFIblog_FRG_sm If you’ve been following our site blogs over the past couple years, you may recognize this continuing story.

Michigan LED lighting manufacturer first came to us to revamp the site of one of their business units and then update some of their tradeshow collateral handouts. A bit later, the parent company’s expansion led them into a merger with another similar firm in Texas which, in turn, led to a substantial re-branding effort and a call for the Imagination Factory to handle the online re-branding efforts.

Now that much of the dust has settled on the re-branding, we come full circle, and we’re pleased to announce the launch the newly re-designed, mobile-responsive web presence for the parent, Facilities Resource Group, complete with interactive client location map and case study portfolio.

See their bright solutions at FRG

Ecommerce: Minor League, Major Food

March 20th, 2016 by Ted Bailey

baseball_suite Yessir, it’s baseball season once again and time to update over a dozen client’s “SOCS” (suite online catering system) websites.

Team IFI’s SOCS sites are customized for each participating club and allow baseball fans who have rented a game day suite to order online from their club’s catering menu.

Each year we added a few more clubs to the IFI SOCS roster. If your favourite ball club doesn’t offer it yet, have them contact us at the Imagination Factory.

Site Launch: Green Wellness

February 27th, 2016 by Ted Bailey

IFIblog_GWL_sm Welcome to Green Wellness, Grand Rapids’ home to holistic oils, tinctures, salves, lotions and supplements containing the highest grade of Cannabidiol (CBD), which comes from the NON-psychotropic cannabis plant known as Hemp.

Owners, Jim & Brandy, wanted to put a website to put their holistic products based within reach of people seeking healthier lifestyles and relief from symptoms of disease. They found many of the sites out there selling similar products were garish and appeared to cater to an entirely different audience than they intended.

For this startup business, the team at the Imagination Factory designed their logo, their business cards and their mobile-responsive ecommerce site.

Take a health look at Green Wellness

Site Launch: Horny’s Big Buck Blend

February 5th, 2016 by Ted Bailey

IFIblog_HBBB_sm Horny’s Big Buck Blend is a specially formulated blend of all-natural, agricultural grade products and ingredients that is easy for hunters or sports persons to use. It is designed to provide outstanding supplemental nutrition to deer and elk, helping them grow healthier, bigger and heavier antlers.

The business had outgrown its previous site, so they had us develop a full ecommerce, mobile-responsive, content managed structure (CMS) where the public and potential resellers could buy his unique product.

Grow more bone with Horny’s

Branding: Revolux

December 22nd, 2015 by Ted Bailey

IFIblog_RVLX_sm Parent company, Facilities Resource Group, came to the Imagination Factory in 2014 to design a new site and later tradeshow collateral for one of their business units, Lux-Evo, a Michigan-based LED Lighting company that routinely delivers energy savings on projects of any scale across the U.S.

As a result of their expansion plans, they had merged with another similar firm in Texas, Etex. The result was a new business entity called ‘Revolux’. Over the years, Etex had acquired numerous domain names at several registrars which were pointing to an existing web presence hosted at HubSpot. However, with an announcement imminent this site needed to be quickly but substantially tweaked to reflect the new brand (logo, locations, services) along with pages for (and navigation to) specific services relocated to the other business unit sites and get the domains all cleaned up.

Team IFI was able to go in and seamlessly help behind the scenes with this client’s public-facing online presence and their re-branding efforts. Who do you know that needs a design team that’s more than just a design team?

Visit Revolux