Part of the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), the Stuart C. Siegel Center is a multi-purpose space in the heart of Richmond that’s home to indoor sporting events, rock concerts, conferences, musicals, social receptions, trade shows, and academic events, thankfully not all at the same time.
The client wanted a modern, fresh website to publicize both the venue itself and specific upcoming events. As their own IT capabilities were limited, they wanted us to provide a complete service including hosting, web design, and ongoing support, although they did want to be able to update the content themselves (within certain limits). One important requirement was that visually, the site should be in accordance with the VCU’s style guidelines so that it is clearly part of the VCU family.
Websitehttp://www.siegelcenter.com
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The Challenges As a ground-up website, all of the burdens of matching material with existing pages are taken away, as are the opportunities for conflicts to arise, particularly when working with outdated protocols. Working to strict style guidelines does present certain challenges, but on the other hand it can speed up the preliminary stages when you don’t have to provide a series of different color schemes and typographic ideas. |
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The Solution Armed with a black and gold template, we designed an interactive Flash website where any section you want is accessible from the index page. We divided the menu into the various uses that the center can be put to, and also inserted a clickable calendar that takes visitors through to a detailed database of events arranged by date. Staff at the VCU can keep the site updated through our custom-built content management system so visitors now for sure they are viewing the latest possible information. |
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The Results Timothy C. Lampe, director of the center, gave us this ringing endorsement: “Thank you for your hard work and time commitment to the Siegel Center Web site. It is absolutely 100% better than what we previously had and helps us tell our story in a more effective way. Tremendous!” |
