Today, we talk strategy
“Girls and boys, we need a new website. Now!” That’s usually how things start in our business. It’s fall 2010 and Bluesponge really needs a new online home that would reflect both the major changes affecting everything digital as well as Bluesponge’s shifting way of thinking (and doing) its business.
What is Bluesponge? What does it do? What does it do well and what should it get better at doing? Does the brand reflect the thoughts, convictions and know-how of the team behind it? At this point, Jonathan (aka Hello Architekt) insisted we start the whole process with a revenue modeling exercise, inspired by Osterwalder & Pigneur. As anyone who knows the guy could expect, this opened a whole world of possibilities and perspectives.
Once this exercise was done – we kind of knew but, as it was then 100% confirmed, this thing is virtually never ending- it became obvious that working on our new web platform was more than a mere site makeover: we needed to rebrand, pure and simple..
That’s when Céline – freelance interaction designer –entered, instantly playing what will prove a crucial and founding role which would define the whole project’s direction and give it its first colors. As an outsider, she was able to suggest a simple and limpid methodology: “Look back to better look forward”. How could we use the best – and worst- of our past ten-year experience to imagine the best possible next 10 years and make them happen? Most importantly, how to define Bluesponge’s corporate culture?
Another group exercise allowed us to define the fundamentals of Bluesponge’s lexicon as well as the company’s natural market(s) and the way it tackles contents of all shapes and sorts. Some hasty sketches were quickly turned into basic wireframes which in turn was transformed into a prototype which helped us work both our content and editorial voice.
While browsing our 10 year archived portfolio, it became crystal clear that the concept of ‘related content’ had been there all along, basic fuel to storytelling, linking all of our projects with one another.
Posts like this one will gradually populate the Projects, Services and Collaborators sections on our website. We believe that making sure our collaborators contribute to the site on a regular basis creates that Bluesponge family spirit we cherish.
It’s with that kind of ‘architecture’ in mind that we start this project. We will use and treat contents as mere objects relating to our site’s various sections and themes to materialize that “show, don’t tell” principle of ours. And here is what it looks like:
And then …
OK…. All this sounds very nice but… The real challenge remains in properly telling you a story. A story that will unveil as relations between future contents appear… on the interface.
Other issues and challenges lie ahead in terms of voice and rhythm to the experience. How to re-tell the stories and experiences from the past ten years? How do we interface with people, with clients, with you? What kind of navigation do we favor for the whole content? How do we make sure you feel like being told a story? With strong and attention catching titles? With images? What editorial and visual hooks do we use to palliate your now legendary attention deficit?
Every day, we will refine our deployment plan and scenario regarding content as well as functionalities. This 28 day live creation exercise is indeed a tricky one… every day, we will have to find a balance between preparation, improvisation and reaction (being your feedback). Funambulists…
