Cedar Beach Resort, one of the largest resorts on Salt Spring, has gone live with Charles Buchwald & Friends. The newly revised site is a major upgrade and expansion of their former site, incorporating new photo galleries, interactive maps, contact forms, a revised and updated logo, online reservations, and a state-of-the-art Content Management System (CMS) allowing them to maintain and grow the site themselves.
With estimates of as much as 90 percent of travel planning taking place online, this family oriented resort was feeling the need to open up a clearer conduit between staff, customers, and potential customers. The former static, brochure-like site’s outdated look and feel, lack of functionality, and difficult maintenance had become liabilities. Outdated photos and information gave an inaccurate picture of facilities that have undergone significant renovations. After a thorough selection process, CB&F was brought in to make changes.
We created a flexible framework to show not only the updated facilities, but just as importantly the carefully cultivated family friendly atmosphere at the resort. The result is a site that can be easily and quickly kept current, and shows off the business to good advantage. Key communication channels are quick, easy and reliable, encouraging quality contact from returning and potential customers.
Check it out! And if you’re coming to Saltspring with your kids, and need a place to stay and swim and soak in the island atmosphere, be sure to contact the friendly folks at Cedar Beach Resort.
Working with Saltspring Community Education, Charles is offering two courses for the late Spring session:
- Photo Editing for Photographers
- Websites for Community Groups
Register for a course with a friend, and one of you gets 10% off!
Isabelle Hampton Stone’s new Coaching for Success website has gone live with Charles Buchwald & Friends… or rather, it’s been live for a bit now, and the client and we have finally tied it all together. Check out Isabelle’s site for an inspiring look at her varied, in-depth experience as a coach and trainer in a variety of disciplines.
We are firm believers in open source CMSs (Content Management Systems). They make it easy to manage a web site… so easy that you don’t have to rely on us to edit and expand your content. It’s great for us, because it avoids those call like, “I’ve noticed an errant semicolon on page 2, paragraph 2, sentence 3. Could you change that ASAP?” Workflow like this is not efficient for anyone. And it empowers you to build more valuable content into your site, which is great for SEO, attracting new visitors, and retaining visitors.
Sometimes, though, even a simple, powerful tool like our hosted WordPress is too much. In that case, there are a few web building tools out there that are even simpler. The Codeless Website lists them and provides thumbnail reviews. (Be sure to check the comments on the article for a few they missed.)
Why would I tell you about sites that you can build and run entirely on your own? Our goal is not to sell you services, it’s to help you succeed. We measure our success by how your endeavor is measuring up to your yardstick. Greener processes? Happier clients… and employees? Higher profit margins? Often a well designed, green marketing program can work wonders. Sometimes it’s a sophisticated, interactive website. We’ll help you figure it out. And if the answer involves a site that doesn’t involve us, then “more power to you”!
After winning a demanding and thorough selection process, CB&F helped Raffi and the staff of the Centre for Child Honouring to craft a direct, consistent and powerful online message.
Working with Centre staff, Charles facilitated the move from an older site, focusing and expanding the message, and keeping it on point, conceptually and visually.
The CMS-based site delivers… through a clean, friendly design incorporating social media and rich media. An open architecture ensures the site can expand as it increases it’s important role in their vital outreach and education programs. Hosting on CB&F’s carbon-neutral, green server was a natural for this group. Easy, secure online donations and a basic web store will help raise funds for the next stages of their meaningful growth.
Here’s another interesting source Yanko Design – Modern Industrial Design News. It’s sort of an unfiltered, shallow-but-broad collection, but there are some interesting comments and lots of articles.
Technorati Tags: industrial design, sites
Flickr makes it easy to share store, organize and share photos. It’s a great tool for both business and personal life. If you want to be found on Flickr, though, it takes just a few moments longer. Here are a few tips for getting the most out of this great service….
- Edit your photos before uploading: cropping an image can often save file size and therefore upload time, and can make for a better composition, too. Be careful if you plan to use the photo for print projects, though, since editors often appreciate a little extra so they can fit the image into their layouts.
- Use an application like Uploadr, PictureSync or the Flock browser to upload your photos. Flickr’s tools are easy to use, but it can be faster and easier with one of these, especially if you have lots of photos to share.
- Keep your stream of photos up to date by learning to use email to post your latest photos. It’s so easy and quick that you can do it from a smartphone. If you are using Flickr for business, this is an easy way to get everyone on your team up to speed quickly.
- One of the most effective ways to make it easier for others, and yourself, to find your photos, is to tag your photos with good keywords. Once you’ve labeled a few, Flickr makes it easy on you by giving you a list of words to reuse. If you don’t use keywords, how will anyone find your photos?
- You can add a special type of tag to your photos by using Flickr’s “geocoding” features. This puts your photos on the map, in more ways than one.
- Highlight what’s going on in your photos with the “add note” tool in the Flickr toolbar. This is great for informal tutorials.
- Subscribe to the Flickr Pro service and you can upload full resolution shots, in a file size appropriate for many print projects.
Learn these few tips and you’ll be able to use this service to communicate more quickly and easily, with friends, family or colleagues. It’s just a matter of taking a little bit of time to add that extra bit to your photos.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
This is a personal plug, plain and simple:
I haven’t had the opportunity to use it yet, but here’s an intriguing service along the lines of Ponoko. It’s emachineshop.com, and they call themselves an “online machine shop”. You download their free CAD software and use it to draw and/or model your parts, immediately after which you can get pricing, availability and other info. I’ve tried the software, and although it’s Windows only, it is relatively simple and quick to use. If you have tried it, please leave me a comment and let me know about your experience.
My brother sent this clever take on custom manufacturing, Ponoko. Looks a lot like another step closer to the fab lab, but with someone else doing the dirty work of running and maintaining the laser cutter. Now if only it wasn’t shipping from New Zealand…