Southside Village Association is one of Sarasota’s oldest shopping districts. SVA has collaborated with over 50 established businesses that provide the general public with Dining, Shopping, Beauty & Wellness, and Professional Services. With this being considered, we set out to build a website with custom features that would assist the public with a directory of member businesses and map of each quadrant.
Objectives & Challenges
The central goal of this project was to provide custom photography, graphic branding, and a website design layout that made navigation towards each business not only feasible but easy.
In order to provide an easy-to-read layout the two custom features that were necessary for this client was a business directory and a map of each quadrant. These custom features only add to the overall function and usability of the website.
- The business directory supplied the opportunity to add custom fields that allowed each SVA business to be displayed in one of the four merchant categories (Food, Dining, Beauty & Wellness, and Professional Services). SVA is then able to easily upload a logo, name, address, phone number, a small description of the business, and a website link connecting to each businesses site.
- The map provided the ability to section off each quadrant of the Village. Each quadrant is provided with a pop-up overlay of “info icons”. These info icons provide a more in-depth view of which businesses are in that quadrant and how to get there.
Objectives
- Capturing photography that reflects the fun and casual “Park, Stroll, Shop, and Dining” atmosphere.
- Designing graphic branding for the website that is visually pleasing.
- Creating a beautiful, simple, and informative website that implements the following:
- Making sure the website is functional and harmonious for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
- Providing all necessary information such as location, contact information, social links, etc.
- Reflecting SVA’s downtown atmosphere.
- Presenting each business in one of the four merchant categories.
- Mapping out the general locations for each business.
- Displaying a blog format for announcements and events.
- Building a custom business directory that allows for SVA businesses to be listed in one of four categories.
- Designing custom fields for easy input data entries by the client (to add or modify business information.)
- Providing custom templates for category index and individual business pages, displaying each custom field’s data.
- Establishing a custom map with pop-up overlays of “info icons” so visitors can find the businesses easily.
Challenges
- Shooting and choosing photos that provided as equal a representation of the member businesses as possible.
- Developing graphics and logo designs for an organization that has had a wide variety of professional branding directions over the years.
- Identifying a limited number of appropriate category titles to cover a wide range of business types.
Southside Village Directory Page
Project Components & Highlights
for Southside Village Business Assoc.
- Custom business directory with categories, tailored fields, contact information, and an easy-to-use interface.
- Custom-designed map with clickable icons that provide a pop-up-overlay with business names and locations for each section of the map.
- Fade-in animations that are both tasteful and eye-catching to the common viewer.