Background
The Muddymoles were looking for a cost effective site which they could use to build an online community of like minded people, offering product reviews, general comment and entertainment to other mountain bikers.
To fulfill this objective the Muddymoles wanted a professional looking style that emphasized their relaxed approach.
The site was to have a minimum of three different contributors writing material to the site who had little or no technical web skills.
Solution
To address the limited technical skills of the contributors IrisCreative determined early on that the Muddymoles site would been best administered using blogging software, in this case Movable Type 3.2.
This would also allow a simple means for readers to comment on entries and to link to other community based websites that also tended to use blogging software.
IrisCreative devised a custom design with bespoke pages and a color palette that focused on earthy tones to reflect the mountain bikers' outdoors lifestyle.
As a result a rich green for the banner was used with off-white for the main part of the page. Text was rendered in a dark brown that still provided enough contrast for readability and links generally use a burnt orange.
We created a simple logo based on the Muddymoles title and a tag line that reflected the stated aims for the site.
In addition, we borrowed ideas from traditional print media to create an informal journal feel, by using carefully chosen fonts used to distinguish headings and article text.
In traditional print headings are often written in a sans serif font, for example along the lines of Arial, while the main text tends to use a serif font such as Times New Roman.
On a printed page this approach works well but a computer screen has a greatly limited resolution making the serif font difficult to read in large blocks of text.
IrisCreative turned this convention on its head to provide striking looking headings and easy to read text.
Finally, the Muddymoles wanted to be able to display photographs of the local area, various bikes and their general activities.
IrisCreative provided a 'polaroid' template for their writers to use (with a little training) to continue the informal theme and make the photos look as though they had been hurriedly snapped and then crumpled up in someone's pocket.
The end result
Movable Type allowed authors to quickly become confidant with adding information to the Muddymoles website which was important to enable a steady flow of writing.
The site achieved their requirement to feel like a written journal through the use of careful design to reflect a slightly crumpled look and consistent writing. We recommended that one person take responsibility to review articles to ensure that the content appeared to be written with a consistent 'voice' as whilst retaining the individual nature of the authors, something the Muddymoles were happy to take on board.
Over the coming year (2006) the Muddymoles intend to continue to add regular content to the site and forge closer links with other local mountain biking groups and shops to develop a recognized online community and resource for people visiting the Surrey area for mountain biking.
To see more, visit the Muddymoles.