by Joseph Graves | Mar 1, 2014 | Business
UPDATE:
Bandon Capital Management was acquired by Logan Circle Partners in late 2014. The beautiful website we spent months building was unceremoniously retired as part of the transaction.
Mutual Fund website design made easy
Publicly communicating anything in the investment world is difficult to do (but we know how to do it, more here), and creating a website that is both informative and visually stimulating the primary objective for our client. Bandon Capital Management is a pioneer in the investment (absolute return long – short bonds if you are wondering) world and they’ve taken that same approach to their website design. Eschewing stock photos and cliche images of old men in suits, they opted for a design that was fresh, modern, and full of custom graphics and images.
A few details
In addition to good design, they had a few other requirements to make their website compliant with FINRA. One of those was the ability to make certain content only accessible to financial professionals, but still be easy to use and maintain. To accomplish this we customized a lightweight membership plugin to keep it simple, yet still do the job. The other was a separate section for BandonFunds.com that used the same data base, but didn’t run afoul of the regulators (how we accomplished that was a challenge!)
Another interesting add on was a quiz to test visitors knowledge of Long – Short debt. It’s a fun and clever way to help educate people on what they do without being boring. A nice little add on is the ability to share results with your friends (or not if you didn’t do so well). Take the Long – Short Challenge.
Great clients make great projects
All in all it was a great project to work on. The team at Bandon is very knowledgeable, yet they allowed us to use our expertise to help communicate their message. We look forward to continuing our relationship as we move into an ongoing marketing role where we’ll help create content and continue to broadcast their message with the goal of attracting more investors in the fund. (If you are worried about the possibility of rising interest rates, give them a call or tell your broker to look at BANIX)
What do you think?
by workshedAdmin | Aug 20, 2013 | Workshed News
Meet the new Workshed
Greetings, all! It’s been awhile since we’ve communicated with you this way, but we have some exciting news to share with you. Back when I founded Workshed in 1997, I was just a lone freelancer working nights, putting in hours after my day job to earn some extra money. This was before children and many of the other trappings of adulthood that generally make life more, well, complicated.
Fast forward, and we can see how Workshed has been through so much change over the years—from becoming a full-time, home-based business, to being a full-service creative agency with eight employees. Over the last year, Workshed has shifted back to more of a part-time business again, only this time, the trappings of adulthood are telling us that it’s time to pass the business on to new owners, with new energy and new ideas.
Welcome, Joe Graves and Brian Kashas
How does that Hair Club for Men commercial go again? I’m not only the president, but I’m also a client? Well, Joe and Brian were both longtime clients of Worskshed with their business ventures over the years, and their love for Workshed’s creativity, technical knowledge, and brand has compelled them to take the reigns of Workshed and usher it into its next phase of greatness.
It is with great pride and happiness that we pass the Workshed name, client list, hosting services, and everything else that comes with it, to Joe and Brian. We know they will take great care of you: our clients, contractors, and in many cases, friends.
It’s been a long road for Workshed over the years, but we are thrilled to see what Joe and Brian can do with the Workshed name, and we are extremely happy and secure knowing we are handing our clients off to people who will take excellent care of them. You are what made us who we are, and we know that kind of relationship will continue with Joe and Brian.
FAQs
We know, you have questions. We’re going to address what we think are the most common ones below, but feel free to reply if you have more.
When will this happen?
While we are working hand-in-hand to help make for a smooth transition, Joe and Brian will officially take the reigns effective September 1, 2013.
What will happen to my hosting/Pegmail/ongoing maintenance?
Joe and Brian will continue to offer the same services to you, and in most cases, you won’t notice any significant changes in terms of hosting offerings.
Where are Joe and Brian located?
They have a beautiful office in the growing downtown center of Washougal, WA.
What will happen to all of my data, files, and other information that Workshed has stored?
Everything will be transitioned to Joe and Brian, and we will also maintain an independent backup copy of everything as well.
Are you going to still be available for questions and historical information on my project if/when Joe and Brian need to make updates?
Of course! We will be working with them to complete a knowledge transfer over the next couple of months, during which time we will be available to provide historical information and guidance for questions or technical assistance.
What about my current project?
Don’t worry. If you have an existing project, we will still complete it! We are trying to wrap any existing projects up by the end of September, so if we have not reached out to you already, please let us know and we will work with you to get things taken care of.
A fond farewell, and thank you
With that, we would like to take a moment to thank you—all of you—for everything you have given us over the years. Be it your business, your guidance, your friendship, your trust, or your referrals. Our clients are great people and we’ve enjoyed working with each and every one of you. We know Joe and Brian will do great things with Workshed, and that’s what has made this rather difficult decision easier to make. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us, Joe, or Brian.
Warmest regards,
Bret Van Horn, Founder
Shannon Van Horn, President
by workshedAdmin | Dec 5, 2007 | Articles
The Realization
When we expanded our company six months ago, we weren’t sure how we would end up positioning ourselves in the market when all was said and done. The truth is, we had two companies coming together: One of them known for web design and development, the other known as a production house with a couple big web sites under its belt. One thing became clear.
Neither identity was where we saw ourselves.
So how does a company who specializes in helping other companies position themselves in their own respective markets do that for their own business? We suddenly had in-house large- and- small- format printing capabilities, full-service video production, more than one designer and administrative staff. How would we communicate this to our current clients and also let the public know about this new super-powered agency in their midst?
Slowly.
Discovery
First of all, it’s always much harder designing for oneself than it is designing for others. One becomes too close to the project to remain objective and analytical. Add to that, we suddenly had six new people who we wanted to have a say in the direction of the new company.
Suddenly, many questions began to surface.
Do we keep one name over the other? Combine them? A new name altogether? What about the logo? The colors? The fonts? The copy? Don’t we need a web site? Let’s face it, we had our work cut out for us and then some. There were people in Camp A, who wanted to remain Workshed Media and keep the old logo and tagline. Then there was Camp B, who wanted to reinvent everything, logo and all. And then there was Camp C—who were stuck in the middle. We had, on our hands, a proverbial branding midlife crisis.
Not to fear: remember, this is what we do for a living. It’s just, um, a little different when doing it for ourselves. After calming down, stepping back, and remembering our process, we enlisted a little help from our friends and clients. We were able to get back on track doing what we do best—reinventing our brand. After a series of interviews, meetings and documents being shuffled back and forth, we were able to hone in on how we want to be perceived, how our clients perceived us and how our clients actually wanted to see us. With this information, we were on our way to the next step—putting a pretty face on it all.
Beauty School
Once we had the basic premise of how to position ourselves in the market, we had to start adding the face and the voice to it all. This meant getting the team together to brainstorm taglines and promotional campaigns, as well as having our designers brainstorm on logo concepts. We knew we wanted to be positioned as a full-service, small town creative agency. Making things look friendly, hand-made and giving it all a craftsman-like design that was accessible and showed creativity were all key directives.
After some great concepts from the design team and a few reviews, we finally had the logo settled. It turned out bold and strong, with a hint of vintage sign design and an instantly recognizable mark. It clearly shows how we have moved up to the next level and gave us the fuel we needed to push to the next tasks at hand.
Learning Our Voice
Next up was figuring out what we wanted to say and how we wanted to say it. It seemed as though our main selling points were our small-town hospitality, our one-stop-shop structure and our ability to listen to our clients. From this, the “What if your creative agency really listened to what you had to say?” teaser campaign was born. The copy tone was friendly, down-to-earth and helped to differentiate us from our larger, more metropolitan competition, who oftentimes don’t give their clients any credit for having great ideas. The campaign was so successful that an attendee to our First Friday open house—who happened to be a marketing exec at a ginormous local high-tech company—approached me and said, “I wish my agency would listen to what I have to say.”
While the teaser campaign has served us well, we felt that the forthcoming launch of our new web site and marketing materials warranted an updated campaingn which will be revealed with the launch of the web site.
Bringing It All Together
Now that we’ve had a few months to live with our logo and establish our brand, we are working hard to launch our new web site, which is scheduled to go live on Christmas day. We’re offering a sneak peek here, but the gist of it is that it is going to have a hand-crafted feel, invoking craftsmanship, creativity and a true sense of the quality and style of work we do every day. So, please, do come back on Christmas Day, 2007 to see what we have to reveal. We look forward to a new year full of adventure and great new work, and we welcome you to become a part of the extended Workshed family.
