The Challenge that was the Blue Whale Media New Website 

Where do I start. No that’s actually what was going through my mind when we decided to rebuild the website. For any of you that have had the “pleasure” (I’m hoping it was) of meeting myself or Gary, you will know that when it comes to design we have completely different styles, which could make a re-design challenging. Also, we can get a bit carried away with requirements. Some people think that’s great, but they clearly haven’t built a website recently, as the amount of features available for WordPress these days is unbelievable and in true Gary style he wanted them all.

Not only was the new website to be feature rich, but we have also completely re-written all the two hundred pages of content (sigh). In addition to this we have completely re-styled the blogs to have different categories and images. You wouldn’t normally think this was a lengthy task until you hear there are 800+ blogs on the new website.

We have also added new pages link, bespoke portfolios for website build, meet the team pages, videos and Q&A sessions and this is just some of the new features of the website which have resulted in in more than doubling in size.

Why did we choose to rebuild the website? 

If you have seen the old website you would have seen that it was more design based rather than features. This was the trend four years ago when that site was built, but like anything technology has developed and design trends have changed. So, Blue Whale Media, being one of the top three design agencies in Warrington has had to change to with it.

Also, Blue Whale Media has changed in the past five years. We are much more an agency now with different departments than we ever were before. The team has grown from three people to a team of twelve and we have stand-alone teams such as, marketing, graphic design, SEO Consultants, Content Writers, App developers and this all in addition to our website designers and developers. We therefore we have more skills to showcase and promote now than we ever did.

Why did we go for such a modern look and move away from the cartoon style that’s been the staple of our brand for seven years?

In essence for much of the same reasons as the above. We are no longer just a design agency. We have much more on offer for our clients and needed to showcase this. We have moved into new offices in Birchwood also. These offices were recently re-furbished and we are now in a modern building all our own which looks great, so the website should look as fresh and up to date as our offices do. Which we feel it now does.

We also haven’t completely lost our style, which was important to us and why we decided to use custom animated sliders on each page of the new website.

Who decided to rebrand the company & Logo?

This was mutual (I like to think that) we have always loved our name and it is always a talking point with customers. They always ask us “why are you called Blue Whale Media” and the answer depends who you ask myself or Gary (If you want to know what the answer is you will have to call and sign up for a new website). But the logo again was very much in-line with our old branding and fonts which we have moved away from with the new website build. So, we got the design and marketing team to have a play around with a few ideas and do some market research and they came up with our new B, which I love. This was then presented to the rest of the team with the evidence which was indisputable as the new logo illustrates a far more professional and modern design agency.

How long did it take to build?

The truth is from start to finish it has taken nearly nine months to get to a point where we are ready to put the website live and it isn’t even finished. We have more portfolios to build, we are adding a shop, we have Q&A sessions to film with the staff and there is so much more we have planned. But I suppose that’s the great thing about website design and owning a design agency that it never stops and nothing ever finishes.

What is my favourite part of the website?

It is so hard to decide, I have been so happy and excited throughout the build of this website. I love our new portfolios as I think they give perspective customers a great insight on how a website came to be. I love the meet the team pages for the interactive ability that they provide us and how they allow us to be more engaged with our customers. But I think above everything I adore the homepage. It is a perfect mix of features, information and style. I love the 360 video that shows you who you are dealing with and what we are like. I love the showcase of new websites that we can update. I love the social feeds and customer testimonials section. I just think it’s the best. 

Why do I think this website is better than any other website design agencies in Warrington

 When we started this build, we viewed a lot of website design companies websites. The one thing that stood out to me was how templated, boring and sparse they were. None gave you the information you were looking for, or showed you who you would be working with and I hated that.

I have always been an advocate for being upfront about pricing and what can be expected which is why the old website and this one has packages on it. I hate the cloak and dagger manner in which most website design and marketing companies operate and whilst I’m not saying that promises can always be made (no-one controls google) I do think that companies should be able to show, their advice working and explain why they do things in a certain way, which is something we pride ourselves on doing. Our moto is under promise and over deliver not the other way around. I also wanted the new website to be full of information for our current and new customers. So they had some knowledge of what we offered and how we operate, which most other companies tend not to provide.

Well that’s my blog about the new website. As I said these will now be a regular occurrence from the team so if you enjoyed it make sure you are following our social media’s or join our newsletter to be notified of my next blog.

Thanks for reading. TTFN!

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