When I was first introduced to this project, I thought that our clients might have gotten some worst case scenario ideas from the“Doomsday Preppers” TV series on the National Geographic Channel. However, after meeting Tim and Jen McMahon, I quickly realized that they are completely rational business-minded people who were just trying to buy an emergency kit for their family. After being unimpressed by the current products on the market, they started to do more research and soon, The Safety Junction was born.

The McMahon’s connected with Matchbox early in the development of their company for assistance with collateral and web design. The business plan and logo were developed prior to our engagement with The Safety Junction. Our team was then brought in to design the outer packaging, the bundle icon system, the family plan and other elements included within the kit. Utilizing the icon system and building off of the packaging design, we then designed the user guides which provide a step-by-step look at what is inside of each kit, the replenishment reminder cards which alert customers when items in their kit are close to expiration, and even family game night cards. (I dare you to download and play “Name That Tool – Family Survivor”, you’ll be shocked at how ill-prepared you truly are!) From these elements, we then dove into a customized, fully-loaded consumer-friendly website, which is light years ahead of other “emergency kit” providers’ sites in its ability to put a friendly face on emergency preparedness products.

The Safety Junction’s identity is cloaked in a red, white and blue color scheme to imply the importance of the content it covers. Red to portray the urgency in emergency situations, blue to portray the calming effect that preparedness can have in an emergency situation and the color combination of red, white and blue to connect and unite The Safety Junction brand to our National colors. The colors and graphics are strong and bold to grab and retain the attention of the customers. The content could be vital to their survival, so we made everything extremely user friendly. We implemented an icon system for ease of use throughout the entire brand – whether a user is browsing the website, using a kit mid-disaster, or playing family game night, the icons will eliminate unnecessary confusion and provide a memorable image to rely on.

With Phase 1 of the project nearing completion, we can say that we, and our clients, are so pleased with this first step. The website is now up and is full of cool features and great information. It even has a unique customization process so you can create the perfect kit for your family.

Try it out by going to www.thesafetyjunction.com

The first project that I worked on from head to toe, start to finish, was this one-page site for St. Louis Community Credit Union. They came to us with an idea and we ran with it! We utilized their existing logo, color scheme, and circular pattern but created a fresh new page. We utilized existing customer positive feedback to encourage new clients to switch to St. Louis Community Credit Union. I think it looks great! And our clients are happy. Rumor has it, we had 40 reasons in one day when the site first launched… SUCCESS!!

http://www.reasontoswitch.com/

]]> http://www.matchboxdesigngroup.com/featured/reason-to-switch-website/feed/ 0 http://www.matchboxdesigngroup.com/featured/fathers-support-center-st-louis/ http://www.matchboxdesigngroup.com/featured/fathers-support-center-st-louis/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:28:48 +0000 skidwell http://www.matchboxdesigngroup.com/?p=2542 ]]> We were recently asked to create an invitation for the Fathers’ Support Center in St. Louis. They have an annual dinner to help raise funds to continue their mission.

What is their mission? Fathers’ Support Center works to foster healthy relationships by strengthening families and communities. They provide a variety of activities and support programs for families. These programs help parents develop skills that will foster the well being and responsibility of their children and create a healthy family environment: financially, emotionally and spiritually.

We were given a copy of their invitation from last year and the creative freedom to redesign it for this year’s dinner. We decided to take two approaches:

For both approaches, I used a two column grid to better organize the info in the space and created a linear pattern to give the invitation more texture/interest.

Last year’s invitation featured two wine glasses mid-toast, celebrating the strength of fathers and their support for their families. I continued the theme of toasting fathers, but recreated it using a series of hand-illustrated wine glasses. I illustrated a second background for this version of the invitation, which included champagne bubbles in yellow-gold.

I also created a new option, one that focuses on the mission of the Fathers’ Support Center, rather than on the dinner itself. In place of the wine-glass illustration, I created an illustration of a father’s hand holding his child’s hand, showing the support and togetherness that Fathers’ Support Center aims to foster in families. I carried over the yellow-gold color from the first version to encompass the illustration and symbolize the rising sun, a metaphor for hope.

It was incredibly gratifying to have the chance to promote Fathers’ Support Center and their mission to create healthy family environments for children and parents in the St. Louis area. Here’s hoping they receive lots of support at their annual dinner this year to continue their mission!

Signing off until next time! – The Matchbox Intern

This is a fulltime position with salary and benefits.  Please fill out the form below and let us know more about you.

The homepage feature we developed is a custom jQuery slider that features multiple content areas within each cell.  This matches their 5×7 postcards which were sent out to prospective students so they are instantly seeing something familiar with a little added functionality and flare.

Check out the site at www.quincy.edu

http://engagethesocialweb.com

About a year ago, we found a good 3 character domain name – http://mdg.me which would lend itself perfectly to being a short url creator but the task of creating this meant a descent amount of development time.  However – the friendly folks at http://www.yourls.org have created a lightweight set of PHP scripts to help you easily setup one of these services on your own.

The process is simple – create a database, make some modifications to the config.php, upload the files, activate the admin area and you are ready to go.  You can make your service public or private (ours is private) and get detailed analytics on all of the links you create.  As a note, because of the rewrites necessary for the link shortening in the .htacess file I decided to make the redirect at the root of mdg.me in plain HTML.

If you have an extra domain that is short in character length this is a quick easy way to create your own custom links!

When we started looking at the project with Blick it quickly evolved from a landing page to an informative single page site.  We were excited with the challenges this brought on and are even more pleased with the outcome. Here’s how we did it…

Amanda worked with the Blick team to craft a new look based around “Imaginative, Meaningful Communications.”  We started development with a static HTML site and implemented some jQuery features to dress it up a bit.  One of the main features of the site is the fixed navigation.  When you click on a menu item the page will either scroll down or up to the desired content.  We also used a content slider to feature some of the their recent work.  The image below is a preview of the full site but you can see it in action by heading over to www.blickandstaff.com.

The Red Dough™ Prepaid Visa Card is issued by St. Louis Community Credit Union, Member NCUA, and may be used wherever Visa® debit cards are accepted.

Matchbox designed and developed a custom microsite to promote Saint Louis Community Credit Unions’ newest product offering, Red Dough™, a reloadable debit card. Red Dough™ is marketed towards consumers who either do not trust financial institutions or cannot get a bank account due to their financial past. The Matchbox team worked with Saint Louis Community Credit Union to focus the websites’ messaging on several aspects of freedom the Red Dough™ card offers to its’ consumers:

• Freedom from the high fees of other reloadable debit cards.
• Freedom and convenience of a credit card without the debt.
• Freedom from check cashing fees & overdraft charges.
• Freedom to use your card wherever Visa^® is accepted.
• Freedom from carrying cash that could be lost or stolen

Visit the Red Dough Website: http://www.reddough.com/