recent case studies
What we have been doing for our clients...
As a company we work to the maxim:
Our websites should look great, work brilliantly and deliver excelllent results.
A Hammer Design website design should look great, which is important and kind of the point of great design.
Everything we do should be well designed to work as brilliantly as possible and
everything we do should get serious results for our clients.
So here is some feedback, a few case studies and a few words from recent client work...
Sheffield Adventure Film Festival:
The greatest adventures online - proper planning and preparation prevents **** poor performance.
Sheffield Adventure Film Festival takes place every year and is invariably a great success with 100% of visitors saying they will return – they obviously do!
The website requirement was to create a simple to use film selection tool where a visitor could compile a list of films to visit. The problem is that film viewing times overlap and are in different areas.
Hammer Design created a simple selection tool and visitors were pleased with the ease of use and the clarity of the supporting print material and so they landed on the Showroom cinema in great numbers testing the web server and ticket sales people in equal measure.
Next year the visitors online can expect even more improvements and ease of use!
Exposed Magazine:
The naked truth - Exposed's new online magazine unveils itself as a state-of-the-art website without compromise, designed, stripped to the bone and rebuilt from scratch...
Sheffield’s leading listings magazine, Exposed, set some serious challenges to deliver a website that could grow as quickly as they did, and continue to grow and build on their already legendary success.
We implemented some serious foundation database architecture specifically for Phil, Steve and the rest of the hip crew at Blind Mice Media, which has proved a godsend, changes are proving relatively cost effective and as page numbers and articles soar quite manageable.
Exposed’s continued success is now presenting some new challenges. Now with much greater server requirements and as mobile web browsing grows in popularity there are some exciting new demands and requirements with plenty of developments in the pipeline.
Wild Country:
Go wild in the country. The new climbing equipment website that takes the lead - Online technologies, social networking, multi-languages and products climb up the world's search engines.
Many, many years ago, probably more than 15, we wrote a headline for Wild Country titled ‘Hard Core’ which has since been massively taken up in the industry. Wild Country’s website ask was indeed to complete the circle quite ‘Hard Core’.
We destroyed and rebuilt all the code that controls the CMS pages area to accommodate and build pages that could be written in any language – this took quite a while! We didn’t have to do it this way, but we felt an investment was in order here. On top of this, not inconsiderable, ask we developed dozens of plug ins to receive live images from Picassa, Vimeo, You Tube, Twitter AND facebook. We were relieved to see they weren’t on Linked in : )
Then there were a few asks along the lines of, can we create a facility for professional climbers to add their own images to their listings pages, can we add animated images and flash images to our products? Oh and can we make sure all pages can be socially networked with a single click. Oh and…
So we did it all. And we enjoyed doing it all. It was on budget too.
There is a new functional specification for phase 2 – ‘bring it on’ the Hammer team says.
Audio Images:
The sound of success. Hammer's new designer store front leads to a higher volume of sales for retail experts.
Hi-fi purists, Audio Images, stock a range of high-end audio and visual systems from manufacturers around the world. Whilst the company’s loyal following spoke volumes of their knowledge, their old website failed to communicate to prospective customers their undoubted expertise in this arena.
Audio Images needed a site that would do justice to their position in the market, and which was also easy to update and maintain. They also wanted a dedicated and private customer area, to enhance their highly personalised and discreet customer service.
The all-new website has delivered increase sales of second hand products listed online together with much-improved search engine rankings, which has achieved high page positioning on Google.
Safariquip Travel Equipment:
Safariquip wanted a CMS and an e-commerce system that would allow them full control and management of sales, content and SEO.
Since 1982 Safariquip has been providing expedition equipment to major clients in the television, oil, survey and travel industries. Over the years they have attracted the attention of individual travellers and adventurers who wanted bespoke designed equipment to suit their exacting travel requirements. The company approached Hammer Design to completely re-design their website, which would be easy and quick to access, and one that could be amended in-house. It also needed to integrate with a new e-commerce system and Hammer also had to improve search engine rankings.
Hammer delivered a new site that exceeded Safariquip’s brief and that has been a hit with their customers.
"We have been really impressed by the speed with which our development has been delivered. The overall sales and indexing results are now much better than previously. Well done Hammer.” Julian McIntosh MD.
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Shape Seating:
Shape Seating - Leading the UK market in posture seating, world beating seat design excellence and a fully adjustable, ergonomic website to suit.
Whilst Shape designs and manufactures the most ergonomically comfortable seating in the country, their website was slightly out of shape.
Shape called on Hammer to build a stylish new website, which would be quick and easy to use and maintain. Additionally, they needed an e-commerce system that would allow multiple product options and prices but that was also easy to use.
Hammer delivered a stunning new website with a demonstrable improvement in volume presence in the search engines, which quickly boosted sales.
'We have been given a first class service, and a first class website. I would not hesitate to use Hammer again for any web development or SEO. They know what they are talking about!' Mark Hallam, Managing Director, Shape Posture Seating.
Wybone:
Wybone design and build just about any piece of furniture for the high street, the park and public areas - they needed a website which would sell this and which could flexibly manage all these options...
Wybone really needed to get their website in line with all the new print marketing and our challenge was to take the company's image, a myriad of options and options on options, all the behind the scenes technology and an already successful website (which we had previously built) to a new level.
We delivered the website with all the bells and whistles and have now thrown ourselves into phase 2, SEO work and companion brochure website Clinical Waste Bins.
Eco-Eco:
The new world. Eco-Eco set the all the bars very high: design, cart, usabilty and optimisation.
Ecologically sound etailer/retailer Eco Eco stocks organic and ethical clothing and products for the home and garden as well as gifts and body care. With a permanent base in the village of Hope in the Peak District and an extensive website selling items and sharing information the aim is to promote a greener lifestyle. Eco Eco carries the Peak District National Park’s Environmental Quality Mark (EQM) as recognition of their commitment to good environmental practice.
The Climbing Works:
Giving it the Works... you like?
Taking it to the next level - creating a super shop, integrating social networks, improving website usability and retaining design simplicity.
Building a 'super shop' for Messrs Graeme, Brian, Sam and Percy so they could appear all modern and trendy with facebook, twitter and some seriously cool pants to show off was the brief. Well it wasn’t actually – because behind the laconic chic that is the climbing wall that’s setting the way for all new climbing walls are some serious brains with hard edged approach to retail and etail.
So no rest for the Hammer Team here, a labour of love, perhaps, but also some pretty radical steps into the new future of social networking and an exemplary case of tying it all to an online shop.
So they can keep pulling on all the plastic there, we had to do some serious plastic fantastic juggling ourselves with developments in the cart, registration management and credit card sales process. You like?
Highlander:
Huzzah! Highlander driving higher on the highroad to success... happiness
Highlander are the leading regional provider of IT services in South Yorkshire, which means they are ambitious. They set us some challenges for the website design and high expectations for results. We embarked on our professional process with gusto, deadlines were hit and the product delivered – although certain photographs were censored – smiles. Steve Brown and Chris Muscroft were delighted with the results and have been adding and integrating content at a pace since.
The Friends of the Peak:
Hammer are appointed to build a fast and friendly website in keeping with the best traditions of the Peak District National Park heritage...
Friends of the Peak (FotP) is an established organisation dedicated to safeguarding the landscapes of the Peak District. Since 1924 they have enjoyed much success, including the purchase of the Longshaw Estate by the National Trust and being instrumental in having the Peak District declared as the country’s first national park. FotP appointed Hammer to create a brand new website with a completely new look and feel. The organisation also wanted to simplify online payments from Members and Friends, which would also encourage and increase fundraising.
Hammer delivered a striking new website that can be fully updated by the FotP. The new site is much easier to navigate and presents their information in a more accessible and logical format.
Benchmark Recruitment:
The people business... Hammer Design build South Yorkshire's smartest, friendliest recruitment agency website.
Benchmark started out with a simple request for a website revamp and a requirement to plug in our CMS to give them a tool to manage everything back office simply and easily for the whole team. On realising our capacity, the brief was rapidly extended to create an organised structure for storing, managing and communicating with jobseekers and potential employees. A requirement for a direct facility for candidates in the South Yorkshire area that allowed them to upload a CV, drop down quick search menus, direct facebook and twitter functions and ultimately a bespoke functionality that integrated job finding with a third party information gatherer website broadbean!
