Designing and developing the Market Buildings website was a fantastic experience and I was granted a really open remit when it came to creative ideas and interpretation.
Being that the focus was the promotion of retail outlets and experiences, the use of social media was at the forefront of the campaign; ensuring the brand was as accessible to the audience as possible. Crowd had already been appointed by the Client to build and manage a social media campaign, which was flourishing at the point of site launch.
To produce a website detached from this process would not have been appropriate and would have represented a missed opportunity.
Central to the success of the website was making the most of the huge amounts of social data generated day to day, week to week by both Market Buildings and their brand advocates.
Typically social feeds are somewhat “bolted in” or appear detached from the design. With Market Buildings the focus was different; we wanted to assess how we seamlessly integrate the social data to handle the majority of the website content management; news, updates, images and so forth while allowing the website to maintain it’s own unique aesthetic.
The home-page provides the best example of this; using data from Facebook and Twitter to build a real-time grid of social media activity ,that also includes blog posts native to the website. In essence it is a “life stream” or a “mash-up” of all things Market Buildings.
This approach to content management has proven in-valuable. Market Buildings and Crowd are able to manage content as it happens and without delay; all that is needed is a smartphone and some initiative.
The familiarity of social media platforms also allows us to involve anyone from Market Buildings with basic social media skills.
This diminishes the reliance on “a select few” that have training or knowledge in the websites content management system and ensures that communication with the audience is practical, fluid and timely. Today’s audience waits for no-one, so producing a website that is two steps behind is futile.
The website makes use of fluid design principles to ensure that the visual experience is maximised regardless of resolution. The result is an image led website that promotes browsing and motivates intrigue. At any given time visitors to the site are exposed to both their own content and that of Market Buildings. The long term aim is to narrow the gap between consumer and brand; creating community led engagement.