The List: Dec. 15th Edition

From clients…

The Halligan Bar has opened their NEW location in Short Pump in Richmond. Features of the new building include: a Fire trucks as the main bar, 2 full bars, outdoor seating, and  VIP tables on top of the fire truck.

Baker’s Kitchen in Richmond is now offering Wilton cake decorating classes! Contact Brandie for more information.

Check out the great new Flash website that Dayrich Enterprises in Lynchburg has put together for their company.

Listening to this PBR interview on the Dirty Dog Juice Gang show had me laughing and nodding along. Check it out here.

From the internets…

I have watched this hilarious video multiple times and can’t get enough of its brilliant hilarity. Thanks to @thesmitten for introducing me to “Leon, take your break at two.”

Need last minute gift ideas? This podcast has some great gifts for ladies, and this post covers the men.

These squishy cat feet make me laugh. The fluffy ones are the funniest!

Random favorites…

I’m getting in the holiday spirit by reading this collection of Christmas stories by Maeve Binchy on the Kindle.

Continuing with the holiday theme, I am making three of these cute letters in red and green to spell out JOY on our fireplace mantel in the basement.

Last but not least, I love all the giveaways that happen this time of year! Check out some good ones here, here and here.

Have a suggestion for The List? Let me know via email: ESpontarelli@GetCreativeWebDesign.com

In this spirit of Spring, I bring you a blog post full of cheerful color. Today, I have for you a collection of colorful logos, some of which made the cut with clients and others that have sat quietly on my hard drive, waiting for their moment to shine. Until today. Today they are let free to glisten in the sun and catch your eye and all the other wonderful things logos are meant to do. Some will look familiar, as they sit proudly in the headers of various GetCreative designed websites, while others are new to the public eye. Contact us for logo design information and pricing. Enjoy!

Here is it, the second installment of before and after screen shots of websites that have been redesigned by GetCreative. The amount of change varies depending on the needs of each client, some receiving an entire new look while others just needed an update. Enjoy!

Before

After

Baker’s Kitchen is a wedding and specialty cake bakery in Richmond, Va. I first encountered Baker’s Kitchen at my sister-in-law’s wedding, and contacted them soon after. With so many gorgeous cakes to display, photos were a high priority in the design of this site. The client had also recently ordered new business cards, which is where much of the inspiration for the color and the logo were derived from. I love the whimsical and sweet quality of this site- perfect for such a great bakery!

Before

After

Royce Overton at Computer Rescue contacted me after coming across another site I had designed in the same industry. Because I promise each of my clients a unique, individual site design, the challenge with this site was to create a look that was reminiscent of the design Royce liked, but with its own distinct personality. The red and white and blue colors came from the owner’s unusual vehicle: and ambulance converted into a computer repair truck, which also serves as a moving billboard for the company. The logo was recreated based on a previously existing logo, with a few embellishments.

Before

After

Campaign to Save Honor is a group dedicated to revitalizing and improving the Honor System at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. The colors for this design were an easy pick, going with UVA’s Orange and Navy Blue color scheme. The group had a significant amount of text that needed to be included in the site, so we used limited photos and created a clean and organized structure for the textual content.

Before

After

All About Family was referred to me through another client, and we seemed immediately to be a great match to work together. President Dianne Inman recognized that their site was failing to compete with other businesses in their industry, so we set out to remedy that. With the client willing to start from scratch, the first element of this design was a new logo. To go with the simple, sleek logo we chose to work with a brighter, sunnier color palette. Choosing stock photos that tied in with both the colors and the content of the site was instrumental in completing the look. After the addition of a Site Map and some SEO work, the All About Family website is now well equipped and able to contend with competing companion care agencies.

Thank you to my wonderful clients for allowing me to use their before and after shots. We’ll be back with more transformations soon!

Baker’s Kitchen is a Wedding and Special Events Bakery in Richmond, Va. As a wedding photographer in Richmond I have had plenty of opportunities to sample the products of local bakeries, and rarely does the chance for free cake get passed by. In the past it was not uncommon for the creators of these towering fondant-covered confections to remain unknown to me- until I started planning my own wedding. Then I asked brides everywhere about the details of their vendors that I found enjoyable (and those that were not so enjoyable too, in order to avoid them). Baker’s Kitchen was a top answer from brides whose cakes were a treat to both look at and devour. It was not until November 2008, when my sister-in-law tied the knot, that I became more familiar with Baker’s Kitchen.

Watching Adam’s sister Gina plan her own wedding just months before ours had numerous perks. I heard her rave about her favorite vendors, including drool-inducing tales of hour-long cake tasting sessions and flavor combinations galore. And I also heard her rant about others, like the bridal shop where the cost of alterations totaled more than half the price of the actual dress. Her cake, though, was one of the more pleasant planning tasks, and the outcome, as you can see above, was a lovely and delicious treat. So, when selecting my own wedding cake I did a Google search for Baker’s Kitchen and ended up at a website that looked nothing like the tales of grandeur and tastes of heaven that I was expecting. Thus my designer urges kicked into gear, and I offered to transform the online presence of the company to match the light and airy consistency of their cakes.

Background
(What? You thought those two paragraphs of bridezilla ramblings were background? Nope, here comes the technical stuff.)

As we all know, the cake industry has recently undergone a trendy transformation from boring-cakes-your-Aunt-makes to Holy-Cow-is-that-life-sized-dog-with-a-wagging-tail-really-edible?! Baker’s Kitchen is that kind of cake company, though with less of an inclination for pyromania than Duff over in Charm City. They craft beautifully shaped and decorated cakes for all occasions, and they needed a website to showcase this talent. Recently purchased business cards were the color inspiration for the website, though I had a few other ideas to start with (see above).

One of the main elements of this website would be photo galleries capable of both organizing and showcasing cakes of all varieties. I created a Flash gallery for this purpose, with click through navigation. Another important factor was photo editing; the bakery had a huge number of photos that could be used, many that needed editing and some that were of too poor quality to be used.

The Site
The main target market for Baker’s Kitchen is brides and other event planners, the majority of whom are women. I wanted a look that was light and whimsical but that would speak to non-brides (including, gasp! the occasional groom) in need of a cake as well. Thus the varying shades of blues and yellows accented with the dashed stitching borders was born. The white and brown accents create enough contrast to keep the text easy to read and also avoid any harsh black elements.

When sifting through the photos I recognized a number of the cakes from weddings I had photographed with dmfoto. So, I called up Daniel and had him send me copies of Baker’s Kitchen cake photos, all of which are gorgeous and make up the main wedding cake photos on the website. This made my job of photo editing much easier, and allowed me to focus on the non-wedding cake galleries. There are four Specialty Cake galleries: All Occasion, Children, Groom and Dessert Cakes. Photos on the Supplies and Contact pages are all courtesy of Baker’s Kitchen, and photos on the About page are all stock photos.

Overall this site was both fun and challenging to put together. One face-to-face meeting and a lot of emails with the employees at Baker’s Kitchen and ta-da! A new functional and in my opinion very beautiful website. This site remains one of my favorite that I’ve designed to date, and I can only hope that the wonderful and talented folks at Baker’s Kitchen agree! Have any questions about the design? In the market for a cake (who isn’t??) and want more info? Leave me a comment and I’m glad to help. And, here are a few more mouth-watering delicacies for your enjoyment.

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