WindsorUrban is an established Christchurch manufacturer of urban lighting and urban furniture. At the start of 2012 MagentaDot Brands took on the project of redesigning the firm’s 14 year old, Web 1.0 style site, which was well past its useful working life and had in fact been working against their interests for some time—Google searches revealed that the Windsor Heritage site was literally buried 12 pages deep. The project gradually developed over the first few months into a complete company rename and accompanying new logo design. This project grew into a career highlight of significant scope, depth and complexity that engaged all of the tools in my multi-disciplinary designer’s tool kit. It has also been a highly successful project that has seen a website that had been buried for years—when using the search terms; ‘Urban Lighting, or Urban Furniture, New Zealand’—rapidly rise to now rank first or second in the search rankings. (Check out the WindsorUrban web design portfolio.)
The company was originally ‘Windsor Heritage’, however it became clear as the research and development of the redesigned website progressed that the company had grown, product lines had expanded, market conditions had changed, such that the heritage ‘Victorian / Edwardian’ style of the name and logo was a company brand image that no longer reflected who they were or what they did. I raised this concern with the business owner and the marketing manager and found that they and the sales team had similar reservations and agreed a company name and rebrand for growth was essential and best timed to launch with the redesigned website.
The change of company name was a natural course correction for the firm that required careful consideration and planning to be sure of achieving a successful outcome. Thorough research of the industry in New Zealand, and internationally, along with close consultation with the client’s marketing manager lead to a good working understanding of what position the company occupies in their industry and what design elements such as;
high quality, uncluttered photography of their products in signature New Zealand settings, and- identifying that there are times when illustration proves a far better choice than photography for displaying certain products with consistent high quality—such as lighting columns / poles, signage systems, tree protection—that are by their nature, extremely tall and thin, therefore not good candidates for photographic display on the web, or of which high-quality photos are simply unobtainable,
- the opportunity to introduce the human element into the display of products that are purposefully designed to be unobtrusive, adding the human figures to the presentation of street lighting and urban furniture products gives context and scale and draws attention to products that are designed to blend into the built urban and suburban environment.
- the development of a unique, easy to use ‘Streetlight Creator’ web application to improve the quality and speed of specifying quotation and orders for both customers and the sales team
What the custom “Streetlight Creator” web application does is help to create a strong point of differentiation and distinguish WindsorUrban from its competitors, some of which are not New Zealand manufacturers but importers only.
The success of renaming the business was helped by the image of WindsorUrban that the new name, corporate identity, positioning statement and website projects—an image that is clear, energetic, and powerful, and a website that is visually appealing, highly organised and very easy to use.
Credits
Client: WindsorUrban: Lighting | Furniture
Category: Industrial engineering, Diversified industrial
Company renaming and rebranding: MagentaDot Brands
Web Design firm: MagentaDot Brands
Web coding, CMS customisation, Web-app coding: Limelight Online – Christchurch
Web app design: Steve Campbell (WindsorUrban), Shaun Waugh (MagentaDot Brands)
Using CMS to populate and manage the site: MagentaDot Brands.
Disciplines: Brand and identity systems design, Digital illustration, Photography, Project management, Rename, Rebrand, Signage and display, Technical writing, User experience design, Web design, Web content management.
