Design Department Web Development & Marketing

Saving You Money & Keeping You Warm

2011-07-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

We've designed and launched a site for Northern Thermal Comfort, an insulator and insulation contractor in Minocqua area of northern Wisconsin. Their attention to detail and industry knowledge truly makes them experts in the field. Visit their site to learn more. http://www.ntcinsulation.com/

The site has a complete CMS for client maintenance, an integrated blog, integrated CRM, and more. NTC chose us for our one-stop solution.

NTC is a complete residential insulation contractor for new construction or retrofit or remodels. Their services include:

Blown Insulation
Batt Insulation
Insulation Consultation
Vapor Barrier
Air Sealing
Attic Ventilation
Spray Foam
Insulation Troubleshooting

NTC has extensive knowledge on what works best for the northern Wisconsin area. Not all insulation or insulation installation procedures work in our area. Visit their web site to learn why they're the experts in the area and to learn what will work best for your project.

Home Care Together - It's About Caring and Giving Back

2010-02-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

Home Care Together, a supplier of home health care products, medical supplies and medical equipment, wanted to simplify their approach to the home health care market and make it easier for people to fulfill their health care supply needs. Home Care Together's approach has been to break away from the shopping-cart model with it's listing of thousands of confusing and competing products and to focus on their personalized supply services.

What, No Shopping Cart!?
You won't find a shopping cart on their web site, even though they supply and sell the thousands of name brand items just like the other guys. Instead, Wisconsin based Home Care Together's goal is to offer a high level of personalized one-on-one services through human interaction - they actually want to talk with you!

To reach their goal we re-designed their web site to reflect an open invitation to call and talk with them about what you need. Their professional and knowledgeable team will in-turn help you decide what items best fit your needs.

And yes, the shopping cart has been removed! You don't have to spend hours on-line wading through hundreds of pages and thousands of similar products wondering if you're making the right decision. Call them, they want to help. Yes, there are caring people behind this company!

Just "getting the order" isn't what they're all about either. They're also on the forefront of their industry by "giving back." They donate part of their proceeds through their "You Buy, We Donate" program to help further medical research. As Gary Fenn, Home Care Together's President, said, "It's all about caring and giving back."

We're proud to be a part of Home Care Together's web development team.

Tortoise & Hare Racing Ahead

2010-01-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

Tortoise & Hare Race Management is a full service race timing and race management company specializing in timing road races (5K, 10K, half marathons, marathons and fun runs), cross country meets, cross country skiing and mountain bike races. They wanted a site that was easy to update, list races and take registrations for any given race.

We selected SilverStripe, an open source content management system, as the CMS due to it's ease of use in updating site content. We also incorporated the Event Calender module from the Bluehouse Group to handle the various race events.

If you're thinking of vacationing in the Minocqua area of northern Wisconsin and want a challenge take a look at Tortoise & Hare for any upcoming races in the area.

SnowMoYard.com Takes Off

2010-01-12T13:23:00.000-08:00

The SnowMoYard.com site has officially been launched. SnowMoYard.com specializes in used snowmobile parts but they offer new parts and snowmobile accessories too. Located close to a ready supply of used snowmobiles, in the frozen northwoods of Wisconsin, SnowMoYard has used parts from all the big snowmobile manufacturers - Arctic Cat, Polaris, Ski-Doo, and Yamaha, along with a selection of vintage parts.

The Design Department developed the site along with their osCommerce powered shopping cart.

If you need a part for your snowmobile Dale is the guy to see. If you just wrecked your snowmobile, Dale is the guy to see...but we hope you're OK. Remember, to stay out of the trees and keep it on the trail.

Web Site Design for Lakewood Resort

2010-01-11T11:24:00.000-08:00

Lakewood Resort on beautiful Lake Nokomis in Tomahawk, Wisconsin is the latest addition to our list of web clients. We created an open, clean design with just a little bit of retro thrown in. From initial design concepts to site launch we provided XHTML and CSS coding, Flash, search engine friendly optimization, and managed hosting.

If you're looking for an updated look for your site or need to capture a larger percentage of your market, give us call or drop us an email.

If you need a relaxing vacation... talk to the great folks at Lakewood Resort.

SilverStripe CMS

2009-12-08T19:53:00.000-08:00

SilverStripe, a New Zealand based design/programming firm, has developed an open source content management system (CMS) based on their Sapphire open source framework. While it doesn't currently have as much industry support as Droopal or Joomla there are a number of modules, themes, and widgets and the list is growing.

So far I've built a number of sites using SilverStripe and have found it easy to install, great to develop on and an easy to use back end. Site examples: Tortoise & Hare Race Management a Wisconsin based race management company; Rogers & Greenberg a Dayton, Ohio law firm.

I think SilverStripe could fill a CMS need for a lot of small to medium sized sites that are looking for a well executed CMS that easy to use. From a designer's stand point it's great. There is also a SilverStripe book available through Amazon. Check it out.

Facebook Site

2009-12-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

You can now visit us and stay up to date with the Design Department Facebook site too.

Welcome...

2009-12-07T19:49:00.000-08:00

Follow our blog to stay on top on of our designs and developments. I'll try to keep you up to date on marketing trends, web tech development and whatever else I find I think might be of interest to you. Stay tuned!