On lucky Friday 13th, 2010 the Cat’s Meow Personalized Gifts new homepage and e-commerce website went live.  Located in Des Peres, MO, Cat’s Meow, owner Catherine Bennett started the business in 1996 selling monogrammed and embroidered gifts from her home.  Since then the business has grown and expanded into the Des Peres storefront it now occupies opening its doors in 2008 and doubling in space less than a year later.  This year we have been given the exciting opportunity of helping them expand into a fully functional online store.

Designed and developed by our team the website has incorporated countless special features and added functionality which will only expand in the future.  The design was inspired by their retail space incorporating numerous elements from the color palate of many of their products to the black and white awning present .   The front end of the site is built on a Joomla! content management system which is linked to one of the most robust cart systems available, Magento.  The text on the website is overlaid with sIFR to allow the use of the Murray Hill font face.

The level of product personalization presented a challenge within the Magento cart as the functionality did not exist out of the box to create custom options which were dependent of one another however we addressed this with a custom option component.  We added Facebook share functionality to allow visitors to “Like” products as well.  On the back end the online shopping cart synchronizes seamlessly with the in-store inventory management and accounting software to simplify management.  We are still looking towards further customization and to address any bugs that may pop up but we are very happy with what we’ve created.  It’s no easy task to integrate everything required to expand a retail store into cyberspace while keeping everything under control and to put a completely custom design on top of that is icing on the cake.

The finishing touches and the final files have been uploaded on the multi-lingual Project GUIA website built for the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. Project GUIA researchers, “examine and promote evidence-based strategies to increase physical activity in Brazil and Latin America.”

Matchbox developed the entire site from the ground up.  From concept to design to construction everything was handled in house.  We also developed a new logo and supporting branding for the organization as well which helps to not only add a bit more style to their materials but will also reinforce a cohesive “brand” image.  Once the initial English version of the website was completed we set to work on Portuguese and Spanish translations.  We recommended Lamp Interpreters translation services as they are a trusted partner with whom we have experience.  Every word of the website was then translated into its respective language and a new home page directing them to the correct version was created.

Beyond these services we recommended social media services, the ability to share the site, and have integrated Google Analytics.  It’s been great partnering with such an organization and helping them get their message out and we look forward to taking care of future changes.

As part of our ongoing partnership on the Energizer_© Facebook campaign Matchbox Design Group again teamed with our good friends at Blick & Staff Communications to develop new featured tabs.  The Energizer_© Power Source campaign goal is to engage users within Facebook, promote brand awareness, and educate consumers about various related products.  Keep reading below the break  to find out more.

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We’re pleased to announce the launch of the new Odyssey Experience website for Stereotaxis, Inc, a St. Louis based medical technologies company.  We think the Odyssey™ Enterprise Solutions and especially the QuadHD displays are incredible pieces of medical technology. They allow physicians to link their electrophysiology labs into a full integrated network…  What this means is that doctors, medical students and other health professions can have live access to the vast array of data and imagery needed to perform complex cardiological procedures in an easy to use format.

Maybe its best you just check out the Odyssey Experience website. We designed and built the site on a Joomla platform using custom components, integrated videos and renderings.

Our good friend Jeff Bachmann is teaming up with DJ Fish and Club 15 to hold a benefit from Haiti relief this weekend.  We’ve been helping out by designing the flyers for the event (above).  All this week the guys are out promoting the event to get the word out about a good cause.

Check out the video below the break

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A Refreshing Look / Content

Color. Easy College Meals changes not only its recipes but also its color scheme to match the current season. Color is a very simple update to make which surprisingly makes a huge difference to the look of a website. Simple color suggestions such as bright greens to suggest a spring picnic, creamy oranges and reds to mimic the fall leaves and pumpkins, and icy blues to suggest the cold weather mimic the current weather outside which makes the website seem current.

Click more for the rest of the article!
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Washington University’s Center for Obesity Policy & Prevention Research new database is officially up and running.  With funding from the Missouri Foundation for Health, COPPR tapped Matchbox to design and build a database to help “explore and identify the existing policies on healthy eating and physical activity in Missouri.”

It’s a bit of a mouthful we know.  But what this really means is COPPR has made their internal Missouri health policy reviews available to the public.  Better yet it looks pretty cool thanks to the integration of Microsoft’s ASP.NET Charting components.   Ever wonder what kind or how many health policies exist in your community?  Why don’t you check out the COPPR Database now?

Student-Athlete Advantage

On 9-9-09 Student-Athlete Advantage opened its doors to new members.  Rick Dodd and Martin Thompson came to us with the desire to create a website dedicated to offering personal advisory and life coaching services focused on guiding elite student-athletes toward their academic, athletic & life goals.  Currently serving elite student-athlete hockey players, SAA draws on Rick and Martin’s extensive backgrounds in academics and athletics.  To help make their dream a reality Matchbox created a Joomla CMS driven website with a custom player profile component.

There is no greater compliment than when a fellow designer features your work.

We’ve been busy rebranding as part of our third anniversary and its nice to see that work paying off. Graham Smith of imjustcreative featured our new design on his August 14^th Logo Design RoundUp blog. We know, maybe we should have seen this sooner but we did say we’ve been busy didn’t we? Expect to see our new website rolled out very soon, we can hardly contain our excitement.

We just got some hot new business cards and they came out just how we expected…HOT.  So we thought we would share…