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Websites

posted 02/23/08 by Rick Webb

Websites. When we started in this business, websites and web marketing were basically interchangeable. Wired had only recently launched “the banner,” and everyone was abuzz. Most people, if they thought about the Internet at all when thinking about their brand, figured they’d need a website, and that was about it.
Back then, the website was everything. Every page, every link had to count. There was, just as there is now, a lot of trendiness and bluster and things you Really Should Do. Nowadays we all joke about how every site needs a send-to-a-friend component, because really how else would it be viral (never mind that things “go viral” because people like them, not because there’s a form to fill out). Back then, every site needed a links page. That was really important. And later on, every site needed an intro.
Where were the Barbarians back then? Some were working on vw.com, of course. Others were working at web startups such as Nerve.com, Send.com, and DMOD. A few were at some of the digital agencies, and well, let’s face it, a few were still in computer school. But all of them were making websites. Along the way, things got crazy, and we became advocates of thinking about the rest of the Internet when thinking about your brand, and web marketing was born and banner ads and viral marketing, short form videos, games and the like. But the website never really went away.
A company’s website can be so many different things. It can be a brochure, of course – the popular choice among brands in the mid 90’s. It can be an application – we see this at a lot of the computer and technology companies. It can be an entertainment vehicle, it can be a store, it can be home to a community of like-minded individuals. In every successful web engagement, we start at the beginning and look at what the website is going to be. What is the vision? This is vitally important, of course, because it leads to entirely different approaches, even for brand websites.
Some of the websites we’ve maintained have been for brands that don’t have an active, engaged audience or web marketing strategy, and, therefore, the sites have been pretty stagnant. We could talk about our website projects for people like Milwaukee’s Best Light, and of course, we’ll show that to you, even if it’s sort of a strange example. Still, it’s instructive from a point of view of our web design capabilities. It ties into the brand. It is well-designed. It speaks to its audience clearly and in their language. It is a coherent site, not frankenstein-bolted together. The games and content and information all feel like they come from the same place. It has a consistent tone, look and feel.
This, then, forms the core of our web design capabilities:
  • Clear, consistent, well-thought-out information architecture and user interface design, as developed by our in-house User Interaction Department.
  • Well-crafted, elegant, uncompromising art direction and design, coherently executed across all sections, with the development of enough templated pages to handle any content need, and designed without preference to any one technology. If the site design works in Flash, it also needs to translate into that e-commerce site running in .Net that you have no control over, or vice versa.
  • Design that, from the get-go, understands it’s designing for a website, and embraces and anticipates the limitations of modern day technologies and markup possibilities. Design for the reality of the technologies out there, not for art.
  • Copy and copy editing for the web to ensure that all the copy is both effective from a marketing point of view, but also from a usability point of view. Copy that is the right length. Instructional copy and error messages that don’t put the user to sleep or confuse them unduly. The brand’s voice infused throughout the project.
  • Rock solid markup. No compromises. Usable in every browser people might be using. Compact, elegant markup code that degrades gracefully.

Across these points, there are about 15 Barbarians whose traditional roles focus on these goals: art directors, designers, markup specialists and user interaction designers. As Barbarians, they have developed web projects for companies such as * Apple, Goodyear, Saturn, Volkswagen, Kashi, Nike, The Webby Awards, Virgin America and more.

Here are some recent posts from our employees about Websites:

The New RockHall.com

posted by Carrie Sasser
Carrie Sasser
Carrie Sasser

Client Services Executive : San Francisco

topics: Search, Technology Industry, Social Networking and Community, Advertising, and Client Services and Relations

 on March 11, 2010 at 11:21 AM
filed under: Websites
Big news today!
For the last year, we’ve had the great pleasure of working with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to redesign their website. It didn’t take more than a second after meeting everyone at the Rock Hall to see that they are extremely passionate about the preservation of rock and roll.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum shares an immersive, interactive experience complete with sound, video, and lights, not to mention all kinds of stuff from your favorite rock and roll artists. The music nerd in all of us wet our collective pants over Mick Jagger’s Union Jack cape (from the Stones’ 81-82 world tour), the larger than life-size photography of Jimmy Page in mid-backbend, or the phone in the Annex’s John Lennon exhibit (if it rings, answer it. Trust me). Rick’s mind was blown by the hand written lyrics to “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, and David Byrne’s original polaroid artwork for the cover of “More Songs About Buildings and Food.”
But all this needed some help translating to the web. That’s where we came to play.
The passion behind the “most powerful art form ever created,” to quote Greg Harris, Rock Hall’s VP of Development, wasn’t translating well in the online world. Static, informational pages dominated the landscape. Media types present in the offline experience were placed sporadically throughout the site. The mission of preservation and education of a legitimate art form wasn’t being fulfilled, and the story of rock wasn’t being told as it should be.
But today – no longer.
The experience design of the new RockHall.com shifts the focus of the site to the content that makes the Museum unique, both in the educational, historically oriented content we create, as well as the information about the museum and its programs. The Rock Hall is actively creating new educational programs, events, exhibits (and so much more), and we needed to capture and translate that online.
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Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary site

posted by kenji ross
kenji ross
kenji ross

Developer, Creative : Boston

topics: Websites, Content, Art Direction, Viral Marketing, and Design

 on January 06, 2010 at 02:03 PM
filed under: Websites
Midway through 2009, we got word that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame would be be throwing a huge concert event to celebrate their 25th anniversary. They were understandably secretive about the artist list, so when we got the final bill, our jaws dropped. Stevie Wonder. Aretha Franklin. Simon & Garfunkel performing together. Metallica with Lou Reed and Ray Davies. U2 performing with Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger. Woah.
So we got on the ball and built a fitting site. It’s simple and smooth, but packs a lot of content into a small space. It features artist biographies, iTunes playlists hand-picked by the Rock Hall, merchandise, video, and unique artist pages. The show happened back in October, but much of the site is still up at rockhall25.com.
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Shakira, Shakira!

posted by Kristen Hengst
Kristen Hengst
Kristen Hengst

Art Director : New York

topics: Art Direction, User Interface, HTML, Websites, and Viral Marketing

 on November 19, 2009 at 05:30 PM
filed under: Websites
You may have heard of her – the singer/songwriter/dancer/humanitarian/superstar. It turns out when she’s not going platinum, she’s starting and contributing to foundations that hugely vastly enormously improve the lives of kids around the world. She’s pretty amazing, that Shakira. And it was time to have a website to match.
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Launched! Kashi (again!)

posted by Anthony Dines
Anthony Dines
Anthony Dines

Designer : New York

topics: User Interface, Lunch, San Francisco, The Internet, and Alcoholic Beverages

 on August 28, 2009 at 04:15 PM
filed under: Websites
SPOILER ALERT: You can always improve on something great!
We’re now in our third year of The Barbarian Group’s collaboration with Kashi. We’re calling this release a refresh rather than a redesign. To clarify, think about the project as a house. When you do a redesign, it’s like tearing down a home to its foundation and starting fresh. That’s not what was needed here, for our foundation was already stable, our website was already successful. Think of this release like remodeling a kitchen, it’s an improvement of what was working, and an optimization of what wasn’t. So we put on our thinking caps and many months later, we’ve surprised ourselves yet again!
The countless improvements to the site are too many to list, but some of our favorites include: a redesigned navigation system, a dynamic footer showing the current community activity, a vastly improved commenting system, a simplified sign up and log in system, an improved look and feel, and of course, a ton of IA and UX refinements. And that’s just what the user see’s. The site is faster, more enjoyable, easier to use, and most importantly, easier to find what you are looking for and more likely to discover things you didn’t know were here. On top of this, we are already working on a number awesome super secret features and updates to be launched soon, so stay tuned for those in the coming months!
We love this client, and we hope you enjoy the site!
Visit the new Kashi.com
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Modelinia

posted by Rick Webb
Rick Webb
Rick Webb

Co-founder, COO : New York

topics: Barbarian History, Strategy, Internet Video, User Experience, and Installations

 on July 20, 2009 at 02:40 PM
filed under: Websites
So I had dinner with my friend Liane last night, and I realized that we never actually blogged on the site here about the amazing project we spent a good chunk of last year doing for Liane Mullin and her partner Desiree Gruber. And in talking about the project last night, and all that they’ve been accomplishing since launch, I was totally impressed, and realized that I SHOULD TOTALLY TELL YOU ABOUT IT.
So, in early 2008, we met with Desiree and Liane, who were, at the time (and still are) working at a company called Full Picture Entertainment. Full Picture is best known as the creators and producers of the hit show Project Runway. Full Picture is also a PR and marketing company, and their clients include Heidi Klum, the host of Project Runway. We also had the joy of meeting Jane Cha, the showrunner of Project Runway and another Full Picture team member. They had a vision for a new fashion and beauty site and community, as viewed through the prism of models. The top model’s inside secrets into fashion and beauty, as well as a compendium of their likes and dislikes. It would also include information about all the top models. Famous models would participate on the site.
When we met Liane and Desiree, they hadn’t gotten funding for their new startup yet, so off they went. They quickly met the people at Polaris, and they entered into a partnership. We re-bid for the work, introduced ourselves to Polaris, and got the gig. And by mid 2008, off we went.
We finished up and launched the site in time for spring fashion week in March of 2009.
Since then, the site’s been growing and the Modelinia team has expanded.They’ve built full content team, found themselves a CTO and a marketing exec. It was a joy to watch all of this, of course. As an entrepreneur, it was highly-rewarding to watch the modelinia team grow from 2 to where it is today. And it’s been fun, over the last 4 months, watching them improve the site, and the content, and learn what works and what doesn’t. Watching them acquire sponsors and grow their traffic, and improve their content. It’s been a fascinating look into online entrepreneurialism, and we’ve enjoyed it immensely.
Liane and Desiree have become great friends of ours, and we’re proud to have helped them fulfill their vision, building the initial build of the site, branding the company, designing the site, and offering a ton of flash and tech development.
They’ve brought it in house now, of course – many of our startup clients use us as a virtual team until they can get a dedicated team in place. It allows them to get going on development even before they’ve found a CTO. It’s never a perfect transition, but it allows for progress even in the face of daunting HR challeges. We think it worked pretty well here.
In any case, if fashion, beauty or beautiful models are your thing, check out Modelinia, or follow them on Twitter or any of the other social networks.
And thank you, Liane and Desiree, for letting us meet so many beautiful models. I think Toby’s stakeholder interview of Iman may be one of the best things we’ve ever done.
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Fūl 2 - Back in the Habit

posted by Matt Raoul
Matt Raoul
Matt Raoul

Interactive Designer : New York

topics: Animation and 3D, Microsites and Minisites, Internet Video, Internet Culture, and Agile and Scrum

 on June 12, 2009 at 06:10 PM
filed under: Websites
Memphis, Tennessee.
Population: 677,272
Climate: Humid, subtropical
Nicknames: The River City, The Bluff City, M-Town
Water Area: 15.4 sq mi
Backpacks: Awesome
Ask any great Memphian (preferably Booker T. Jones) what their city means to them and you will illicit the same response – Music and Backpacks. You can imagine our excitement then when we were presented with the opportunity to work with fūl.
Visit the new Ful website
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Cool By Association

posted by Kristen Hengst
Kristen Hengst
Kristen Hengst

Art Director : New York

topics: Advertising, HTML, Design, Microsites and Minisites, and Websites

 on June 12, 2009 at 05:43 PM
filed under: Websites
Justin Timberlake’s middle name is Randall. His first two solo albums have sold more than 18 million records worldwide. His wikipedia article names “beatboxing” as one of the four instruments he plays. He owns a car wash just outside of Memphis, and has a golf handicap of 6. He does excellent impressions of his celebrity friends, and still remains the type of gentleman who will ask if it’s okay to have a snack during a meeting. In fact, he’ll even offer to share it with you.
This is the type of JT info you once had to painstakingly scour the entire worldwide web to find… until now.
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Questionnaire Extraordinaire: Mayoral Edition

posted by Katie Crosswhite
Katie Crosswhite
Katie Crosswhite

Office Manager : New York

topics: Entertainment

 on April 20, 2009 at 06:57 PM
filed under: Websites
In this, our second installment of Questionnaire Extraordinaire, we interview the newly inaugurated Barbarian Mayor, Nick Bonadies! Not only is Nick the reigning mayor of The Barbarian Group but he is also our IT Hero in the Boston office. For those of you who missed the first installment, let me refresh, I am conducting a Proust-like interview with as many Barbarians as I can get my hands on. The rules are: no NDA breaking, no boring stuff, and if things too vulgar I have to censor it. Also, it is perfectly legitimate for me to edit the interview so I may come across more intelligent and thoughtful than in the original interview. Deal with it. Now, let’s learn some new and exciting things about Nick Bonadies, IT hero.
For clarification, my questions and comments are bold and italic.
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