bowtecharchery.com
All design and coding.
With a company motto like “Refuse to Follow”, BowTech’s website ought to reflect a step forward into the unknown for the archery industry. Their new website utilizes many cutting edge web technologies that help overcome some common web design issues.
One of the first challenges was finding a way to tie all of BowTech’s websites together into a cohesive family. I came up with the idea of a universal navigation bar that would be included at the top of every page. Each bar would have many similarities but also have a sub menu that was brand specific. This way, users would become familiar with a universal navigation scheme, but it would present them with relevant options dependent on their location. I also included a way for the a user to preview where some of the main links would direct them.
Another challenge was finding a way to present a large amount of information without cluttering each page and dramatically increasing load times. To solve this problem I implemented a slick javascript plug in called Thickbox. Thickbox allows content to be loaded when a user chooses to view it (click this link to see Thickbox in action. I upgraded this site with FancyZoom) rather than on the initial page load. Also, Thickbox presents the information in an aesthetically pleasing overlay format that helps a user to focus on the content they are requesting. This dramatically cuts down on the loading time for users.
I also helped design and deploy a new weblog for BowTech called BowTech Live. (You can read more about that project here.) BowTech Live was designed with the idea that it would help drive repeat visits to BowTech’s website as well as allow us an easy and organized format for posting information. The best advantage of BowTech Live is that it allows users who have little experience with HTML to actively contribute content to the web.
Currently, BowTech has four major brands, each with their own website:
- Bowtecharchery.com
- Diamondarchery.com (My portfolio link.)
- Strykerxbow.com (My portfolio link.)
- Airowgun.com (My portfolio link.)
Weblog: BowTech Live » Andrew Colclough | 02-Nov-07 at 12:28 pm | Permalink
[...] the planning stages for the new BowTech website, I thought that a powerful way for us to reach our community of bow-hunters would be using a blog. [...]
Diamond Archery [website] » Andrew Colclough | 02-Nov-07 at 5:30 pm | Permalink
[...] website was designed to convey a sense of value similar to a jewelry commercial. Similar to the BowTech website, the Diamond site incorporates some fancy design elements. The universal navigation is present at [...]
Airow Gun [website] » Andrew Colclough | 02-Nov-07 at 5:35 pm | Permalink
[...] Airow Gun website was the first site that I created for BowTech. They had a new product and they needed a site up quickly that showed off both versions of the [...]
Andrew Colclough | 02-Oct-09 at 4:51 pm | Permalink
[...] the planning stages for the new BowTech website, I thought that a powerful way for us to reach our community of bow-hunters would be through the [...]
Andrew Colclough | 02-Oct-09 at 5:05 pm | Permalink
[...] Airow Gun website was the first site that I created for BowTech. We had a new product and we needed a site up quickly that showed off both versions of the Airow [...]