Five Tips for a Smooth Website Project

What can cause a web design project to go over budget or off schedule? This question is often asked of web firms. Similarly, client’s ask, “What can we do to ensure success with our website project?”

Good news, bad news: this is not rocket science. In design, success is often subjective. Reigning in subjectivity is where we can realize economies, both in money and in time. To that end, the following recommendations apply to a majority of website projects, regardless of industry and irrespective of intentions.

June 9, 2015/by Garrett Dandreo

Is Removing Top Navigation a Web Design Trend to Avoid?

For the most part, I’d answer yes, but at the same time, it may be inevitable.

By the time a web design trend is recognized as such, it is a fait accompli, and practically all new sites begin to look the same. Take a look at the most recent web trends such as Parallax scrolling, long scrolling pages, use of icons, full bleed images, infographics and the list goes on.

June 2, 2015/by Garrett Dandreo

How to Build B2B Websites That Serve Multiple Audiences, Part I

Maybe it is the function of the multi-product, multi-tasking, multi messaged nature of businesses these days but it seems that practically all of our clients share a common problem, which is how to create B2B websites that effectively speak to two or more disparate audiences — without diluting the user experience for each of those audiences. In this two-part blog post, I will address this “multi-audience” web problem, which spans brand, design, information architecture, content creation, and SEO.

B2B Branding for Multiple Web Audiences

January 6, 2015/by Garrett Dandreo

How To Make a Responsive Website & Why Your Site Needs This Facelift

In my last post, I discussed the pros and cons of Responsive website design and concluded that, while not perfect, the pros outweigh the cons. Now that you may be ready to take the plunge, let’s talk about what makes a Responsive design successful and why your site may need a face lift. Read more

June 16, 2014/by Garrett Dandreo

5 Reasons Why B2B Marketing Campaigns Need to Go Mobile Now!

describe the image It’s a well-worn fact that B2C marketers set the trends that B2B businesses subsequently adopt. Between them there are usually several years of lag time. The case for B2B companies to adopt mobile marketing practices and a mobile-friendly web presence warrants an acceleration of that schedule in direct correlation to the speed at which mobility is reshaping the world. Here are some compelling arguments pointing towards the value of mobile to B2B businesses.

April 10, 2013/by Garrett Dandreo

Three Cases of Websites Using Modern Design Techniques

As visual storytellers, we are always looking out for exciting new online tools and techniques to build strong digital brands. Up until fairly recently, for the most part, websites have guided users down the navigational path using the “page paradigm.” On a typical site, one is met with a top navigation, and dropdown menus that when clicked transport you to an internal page that has the limited content predefined by the information architecture. This has been fine overall and we’ve built and continue to build many successful websites using this approach.

January 22, 2013/by Garrett Dandreo

What We’re Thankful For, And One Thing We’re Not (Marketing Edition)

It’s the start of the holiday season and time to celebrate one of the most thoughtful (if derived from historically misguided events) days of the year: Thanksgiving. And 2012 has given us a lot to be thankful for. In light of this, we wanted to share some of the many things we at RainCastle are most grateful for this year in the world of web design and marketing. But, ever the Scrooge, couldn’t resist the opportunity to highlight one particular 2012 frustration.

November 20, 2012/by Garrett Dandreo

Diving Into Responsive Design: What are the main challenges?

describe the image Back in January, I wrote a post on getting started with responsive design, including basic design factors and aspects, current examples, and questions to consider. Responsive design is the process of developing your website so that the site can re-format and re-size itself according to the user’s screen resolution. For example, this allows you to design your website in a four-column layout for desktop resolution that will, once it senses a change in screen resolution, change its layout to accommodate the user.