Encaffeinated, Inc.

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

2011-03-14T18:38

The new Tuck site was designed by Flannel Brand, a group of extremely talented designers with offices about 30 minutes from us in Northern California, and also right across the river from Dartmouth in New England. We were brought in specifically to build the site in ExpressionEngine. They handled IA, design and content migration. This was our first time working with Flannel, and we’re happy to have the relationship. We've already worked on several other collaborations with them since.

Flannel pitched ExpressionEngine on this project but soon felt that their ExpressionEngine chops weren’t quite strong enough for something so massive on the allotted timeline. Tuck is a large site with many sections and subsections. It also has a few mini-sites that we setup with Multi Site Manager so that the Tuck admins can manage content from all the sites from a single control panel.

The flexibility of ExpressionEngine really proved itself here- and the beauty of Structure as well. Tuck was very particular about how they wanted to manage chunks of content on every page and entry of the site, and we were able to give them that control. The Structure module is the main workhorse on the site. We also leveraged many other add-ons to help make content management easier and deliver extra functionality on the front end. We also created quite a number of custom add-ons for this particular site. Most of those add-ons are pretty self-explanatory, but we heavily leveraged Matrix, LG Replace and Image Sizer a’la AJ Penninga to deliver precise control over where media exists and how it looks in a page. Playa is also heavily used to allow Tuck to include relevant content into any page they like.

There wasn’t anything overly complicated about the build. We certainly developed a few new techniques and came up with some new add-on ideas to pursue, but for the most part everything went rather smoothly. The design is fantastic and the granular control the client wanted in the control panel is present. A success all around!

Sew-it-All

2011-03-14T18:01

An old friend of mine came to me for a new website. Her sewing lesson company was about to become a full-time endeavor, and the old website didn't do her justice. When you think about taking classes from a seamstress, you probably think about an elderly lady with trifocals and a mumu dress on. Well, Alicia is a young, vibrant, beautiful seamstress and wanted a website and brand to reflect her personality. We helped her rebuild her brand and delivered a fun website that is full of functionality as well.

The first thing we did was create a new logo that had some sassiness and style to replace the drab old one. We kept the pink, white and brown colors, but chose a new font with tons of personality and wrapped it in an artsy border to ground it. Taking that logo as a starting point, our designers crafted a website design to encompass Alicia's bubbly personality and let her website visitors know that this is a completely different type of sewing class. Her audience is younger women and men in their teens, twenties and thirties who want to learn something new and have fun doing it. To top it off, we created "Fauxlicia", the cute mascot on the site who resembles Alicia way too much.

We built the site on ExpressionEngine, which allows Alicia to easily update the class descriptions and dates, and add new classes whenever she needs to. As well, students can reserve a spot in a class, pay for a class or request a private class. Alicia can also set any class to "full", which automatically adds a form for users to get on a waiting list to the site. It has completely changed the way she interacts with her clients.

Once the site launched, we designed an email campaign template to match the new site and new business cards as well, so Alicia has a unified brand in all her marketing efforts. This was a fun, fantastic project that we are very proud of!

Harassment Training

2011-03-14T17:41

Longtime client ELT approached Encaffeinated to create a new site for them that could act specifically as a concentrated content site for a subset of their product offering. The goal of this site was to attract traffic for Sexual Harassment Training, and then drive those web users to the main ELT site to engage them.

We began by identifying what content from the ELT site could be repurposed on the Harassment Training site. Using ExpressionEngine's Multi Site Manager, we created a new site that updates automatically when content on ELT's main site is updated. If a new blog post in the sexual harassment category is entered on ELT.com, it will also show up on HarassmentTraining.com. If a page about a specific law is updated on ELT.com, that same update will be reflected on HarassmentTraining.com. This lowers the amount of work required to maintain content on the new site while allowing it to still carry all the appropriate up-to-date-content.

We took ELT's established brand and carried it into the new site design. In fact, we used many of the same design cues as found on the main site, but also added unique bold characteristics to the new design. It clearly is an ELT web property but also has its own personality.

In the end, we produced an easy to manage website for ELT that accomplishes their goals of delivering a site specifically intended to promote their Sexual Harassment Training programs and drive potential leads to the main ELT site.

Chad Crowell to Speak at 2011 North Bay Web Conference April 12th

2011-03-14T18:29

Encaffeinated President and Managing Director Chad Crowell will be speaking about ExpressionEngine at the first North Bay Web Conference in Rohnert Park, Ca. on April 12th. A summary of his talk:

Any web professional worth his or her weight will consider end user usability when architecting a website or application. But what about your colleagues and clients? Learn how using the ExpressionEngine platform can empower your designers to create their most compelling designs and enable your clients to manage their content quickly and easily, while delivering to developers the power to build a flexible, robust website or application.

Find out more at http://www.northbaywebconference.com. Tickets are available now for $99.00 at http://www.northbaywebconference.com/register.

Smart Publications

2010-12-08T18:14

After successfully redesigning lmreview.com, a subsidiary of Smart Publications, we were hired to do the same for the primary Smart Publications website. The old site was a network of hundreds of flat HTML article files, many of which needed to be updated each time a new article was published.

We began by doing some heavy information architecture work - in order to give users the ability to navigate almost 600 articles easily, we had to spend significant time brainstorming ways to expose users to the many categories as well as featured and popular articles. Following the IA sessions, we developed a design that helped put a fresh face on the site, using bright colors and intuitive navigational elements.

Using ExpressionEngine, we were able to easily categorize the articles and other site content, and expose the right content via different means including timeliness, popularity and hand selection by the client. We also coded the new design in up to date web standards to set them up for success with search engine indexing.

What resulted was a completely new experience for Smart Publications customers to discover hundreds of well-written articles and books, and interact with the publisher as never before.

The Olive Press

2010-10-13T05:59

In 2009, we were contacted by The Olive Press to fix a big problem. They had just finished a redesign and development of their website and the site had launched, but they couldn't get ahold of the developer and there were lots of dead links on their new site. I browsed the new site and found, literally, 50% or more of the pages on the site showing up blank.

It didn't take much to convince them that Encaffeinated could help. Luckily, we had some open time in our schedule and could jump right on the job. We archived the visual assets from the site and rebuilt it entirely using a fresh ExpressionEngine back end, alongside CS-Cart, a PHP based shopping cart solution. Within a couple of weeks, we had rebuilt their new site using the design and navigation they had just approved before things went awry.

We relaunched theolivepress.com with a solid CMS that allowed them to easily edit the site, and their new store worked great. We found out later that the original developer had used a home-brewed CMS and a very low-powered and obscure store script that wouldn't have lasted long even if the developer hadn't disappeared.

About six months later, The Olive Press called again, this time wanting to redesign their website. Since we'd already build a strong foundation with ExpressionEngine and CS-Cart, we could completely redesign and know that the data already in the system would integrate right into the new look and feel. We lightened up the feel of the site and opened it up, removing the constricting boxy feel, and sprinkled content from deep within the site onto landing pages and the homepage to create a dynamic site with regular content updates as fresh as The Olive Press olive oil. The site instantly became more attractive and engaging.

We also integrated the category-based navigation that CS-Cart provides by default into the global navigation of the entire site. By building a custom ExpressionEngine plugin that fetches the current category tree from CS-Cart and displays it as the main menu, both the store and content sections of the site are always up to date when categories are added, edited or removed. This gives site visitors a direct line into The Olive Press' sales funnel, and eases navigation to boot.

Throughout both projects with The Olive Press, we've helped the client increase sales and become more approachable to their customers.

Encaffeinated’s Chad Crowell Speaking at Second Engine Summit on October 26th

2010-10-13T06:49

Managing Director and President of Encaffeinated, Chad Crowell, will engage his third live audience of 2010 at the second Engine Summit 2, an online, live ExpressionEngine conference on Tuesday, October 26th. The conference is once again organized by Environments for Humans and will feature other popular ExpressionEngine community members such as Ryan Irelan, Mark Huot, Fred Boyle and Leslie Flinger.

Chad will be reprising his talk from EECI 2010 EU entitled “IsEEforMe? The Business Case for ExpressionEngine”. A synopsis:

Building websites and applications as a side job, solo freelancer, or part of an agency has many challenges. Having survived through each of these scenarios, I’ve learned a thing or two (thousand) along the way. Finding and standardizing on ExpressionEngine has helped build my business faster, and serve clients better than I might have been able to, had I never bumped into it.

Our discussion includes thoughts and stories from my business life with ExpressionEngine, and information about how it can help your business grow successfully as well.

Get 10% off your Engine Summit ticket using the coupon code EE2CHAD at enginesummit.com.

Sonoma Gourmet

2010-07-31T17:14

Sonoma Gourmet came to Encaffeinated with an old, simple website- just like many of the clients we take on. Their business had grown but their site had languished for years. At a certain point, the website supported neither the personality nor the product line of the modern, larger company.

We engaged Sonoma Gourmet and they brought a can-do attitude with them to the project. They were enthusiastic and attentive, and the project moved smoothly from start to finish. We designed a new site for them with a classy, yet modern feel, emphasizing their brand by featuring the deep rich colors of their sauces against a textured background that carries a comforting warmth.

The products on the site are front and center, with large, attractive imagery and easy to read product information. Site visitors can purchase the tasty products through a simple shopping cart interface that allows Sonoma Gourmet to fulfill orders in the same manner they always have for offline orders.

In the end, we had a fantastically happy client with a beautiful new site that engages their customers more, and gives them a way to purchase right on the spot. A big success!

Encaffeinated’s Chad Crowell Slated to Speak at EECI in Leiden, Netherlands

2010-07-14T22:44

Managing Director Chad Crowell has been invited to speak at the 3rd ExpressionEngine/CodeIgniter Conference taking place in late September outside of Amsterdam. Encaffeinated recently attended the 2nd EECI Conference in San Francisco and is recognized as a member of the ExpressionEngine Pro Network.

Chad’s talk subject has not yet been finalized. Stay tuned for more details.

Landis Development

2010-04-15T05:21

Landis Development approached Encaffeinated with the need for a quick site redesign. They had some important meetings scheduled and wanted to put their best foot forward. We had an opening in our schedule and were able to meet their needs.

Landis is a project management company that specializes in finding and working with agencies that fund and build sustainable, affordable housing, typically in inner cities.

We evaluated their existing brand and collateral and pulled together a couple of design directions for the new site. We recommended a simple, single page site with an auto-scrolling menu system. This layout style scrolls the user smoothly up and down the page when they click menu links rather than loading a new page. We equate it to the feeling of an open floor plan where people can move from room to room but always have a sense of what is going on in other areas of the house.

We brought together existing branding elements including the Landis logo, corporate colors and marketing copy into a layout that emphasizes process, professionalism, and portfolio projects. The site itself is very simple to navigate and communicates quite a lot of information about Landis in a relatively small amount of space.

Encaffeinated was able to respond to the tight timeline on the project by eliminating the need for most if the information architecture that we typically pour over for website projects. The single page concept removes the need to define sections, pages and deep navigation, while still giving the user enough screens of organized information to consume.

Landis came away with a new website that conforms to their established brand, conveys the information that is most important to their existing and prospective clients, and feels cutting edge; just a little different. Its not often that we can accept and turn a site around so fast, but we're glad we were able to help Landis make a better impression.