You’ve been focused on implementing a 2013 strategy, planning and budgeting for the quarter to come, choosing categories and personas to target, brainstorming content to create…it’s been a busy time for content marketers and it’s still January. But today, we propose a short break to reacquaint yourself with your company’s mission and principles and to see how those elements play out around you. And we’re not just talking content. We’re talking design, culture, goals and people.
Why? Because not only will this help you see if consistency is lacking in your own strategy, but you’ll have a better idea of how the overall mission is–or is not–being properly communicated by other elements of your brand and branding. And hopefully, you’ll gain new insight into just how well the mission is reflected across each department–even to the smallest details.
For example, the Kapost website needed a serious facelift. And in the process, the two designers made sure even the tiniest elements were in service of the larger company mission, personality and goals. Alek Lisefski, one of the site designers from Blue Sheep Studios, wanted to make sure Kapost’s content marketing resources were easy to find and search so that visitors could find the information they cared about most.
“A large change from the previous version of the site is a completely redesigned, interactive, filterable resource page, to provide users with quick and easy access to the wealth of marketing resources. Also serving this priority is that ‘Resources’ are front and center in the nav bar, given as much real estate and importance as the Kapost software page.”
Two of the most important internal principles at Kapost are collaboration and unity of vision, which pervades the way the team operates during both strategy and execution in everything from building platform usability, the ideation of content and–as Jennifer Gunther, Kapost’s in house lead designer, explains–the website redesign.
“The site’s beautiful use of color originates in a palette I have been tinkering with for over a year, and Alek’s response to it. He brought much needed boldness and balance as part of his aesthetic, which reverberates throughout the design.”
“Because it’s kind of abstract what we do and provide at Kapost, we kept the illustrative design elements simple – icons that speak to what types of content we handle. Big blocks of soothing color.”
“The typography we choose for the site was fluid, with a happy smattering of simple, geometric forms, themes that ripple through the rest of the design. Some decisions we made to enhance the site’s simplicity and skimability included shortening our resource titles to only include the title, not a description, of the resource.”
You can see through this glimpse at the Kapost site design process, every inch of the new website is intentional. As with any project, it’s rewarding and fairly remarkable to see how collaboration across teams and the ideation process in general, can translate to an effective finished product.
So take a look at your products, services and communications–do you see your company’s goals and mission in the bigger picture? How about in the details? A unifying vision and mission will go a long way in informing and guiding your team and company. If you don’t have those two things, get them. If you do, make sure they inform everything your company puts out there.
In case you haven’t had a chance to meander through Kapost’s new home, please click here and leave your comments below.