Archive for the ‘Websites’ Category
Moving and Choosing Homepage
There’s a lot of new Medicine Hat websites coming out these days. A sign that Medicine Hat might be embracing the times? Either way, it doesn’t really apply to Moving and Choosing, an initiative of “Be fit for Life” and Alberta Health Services because they have had a website for a long number of years already. This post is about their new one which focuses on an updated design, branding effort and other optimizations of the sites content and focus.
The Moving and Choosing website has five main sections:
- The home page – where you can see new things happening on the site and within the program. The “What’s New” section is updated regularly and features updates to the site and other related resources.
- Healthy Eating – A section dedicated to healthy eating articles, tips, and an events calendar that lets you know about any healthy eating meetings, talks, presentations and more.
- Active Living – Active Living recognizes the joys, values, & benefits of all types of activities. About staying active and getting in shape.
- School Community – Definitely the largest section. Once you enter it, you will get access to a drop-down menu which features the bulk of the sites content: teaching resources, teacher profiles, submission forms, success stories, parent council, newsletters and more.
- Tobacco Free – Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in Canada and most other developed countries. This section features some resources on being “tobacco free”.
Arrival in Medicine Hat
I’d like to thank the kind citizens of Medicine Hat for making my short visit a special one. I toured around discovering the local scenery – The Teepee, the local mailbox (a little too closely), and even the Medicine Hat College’s Square Show. Sigh, breathing the fresh Alberta air was so relaxing. Daisies dancing gently in the wind as the breeze softly whistled through the branches of a nearby tree. It was beautiful and relaxing and everyone was so welcoming and friendly. I love traveling to new places. Do you think I should continue traveling? Visit my website and let me know by voting – www.ivanthegnome.com.
Friday's Image Website Montage
Coming out of TriCube Media, is the Friday’s Image website. A local, visually artistic site, for the popular downtown lingerie and cosmetics store. Recently added to the site was the ability to purchase cosmetics online, truly making it an e-commerce website. Owner, Diane Ziegenhagel states that she still wants women to come into the store for lingerie purchases to receive their premium fitting services as detailed in the “Fitting” article – but the website still allows women (and I guess, Men buying for women?) to browse through most of their inventory.
Each section of products features a custom digital illustration to match the product, done by local artist (and sometimes Medicine Hat Media poster), Dusty Melling. All of the cosmetics imagery has also been digital drawn and vectored to match the overall aesthetics of the site. The color palette is vibrant and fun – suiting the personality of Dianne and the branding of the store.
This post for me kind of goes outside of my knowledge in terms of the content on the website (you know, being a guy and all), but being a part of the actual website development granted me an opportunity to get to know Dianne and her store, I thought it would be nice to shed some light on this beautiful local website, not matter how bias I may seem.
Reconciliation Invite Image
It seems Medicine Hat Media has been left out of the Visual Communications graduation show media release for the second year in a row. This is the last time we will advertise for them! Just kidding… or am I?
The exhibition for the graduation show is open daily between April 3-12 from 9:30AM and 4:30PM in the Medicine Hat College’s main lobby. The reception happens on Friday, April 9th, at 7:00PM, which coincides with The Children’s Hour that starts up at 7:30PM on the 9th.
I have received an invitation through my place of employment for the grad show, but it does not give too much information about what you can expect by attending the show. So judging by their website, reconcilehere.ca, it looks as though there are drawings, paintings, photographs, graphic design and perhaps sculptures.
The branding for the grad show is done again with a straight Helvetica type face. The website is a minimalistic WordPress theme, which unlike past years, allows everyone with access to the back-end of it to log in and upload their own photos. The website allows users to “Reconcile“, whereby the user can post any reconciliations they have, which will then automatically be posted to the website. I posted one:
I am a sad panda that this website was not submitted to http://www.medicinehatmedia.com to raise awareness for the reception!
-Sean
I hope this years graduation show is not advertised to be environmentally friendly, like last year’s Lost & Found show, whose organizers purchased huge amounts of corrugated cardboard to be connotative of the theme, which was probably just thrown out afterwards.
The reception should be host to food and alcoholic/non-alcoholic beverages, music and dancing. Come down, check some art, hear some music and get your fill of food. THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »
Image Pot Homepage Screenshot
Recently launched, Medicine Hat’s Image Pot is a new and unique website focusing on local photography presented in a unique format on the web. The website uses a very unique and cool WordPress theme for showcasing imagery in a different/less-standard way which really looks great for the photography. A nice touch is also the previous/next arrows to move throughout the site easily.
The website was created and is managed by Larry Switzer, a local photographer/designer himself. Most of the current work on the site is Larry’s, but he is open and willing to post anything, anybody would like to share on the site as well. A bit more about the site:
Medicine Hat’s Image Pot is about photographers and their pictures. Our aim is to showcase these fascinating people and their work. We want you to be able to view the world as they see it. As well one of our goals is to showcase Southern Alberta and it’s treasures. This is going to be the place to come to see firsthand all this enchanting landscape has to offer. We hope you enjoy the site and encourage you tell your friends, family and co-workers about us.
The Secret Loft website screenshot montage
The Secret Loft is a new website and project launched by local, Joleen Gavey and released on Tuesday March 16th. The locally unique website presents original, diverse short fiction stories. The stories are broken up into chapters and released separately so you only read a chapter per each book update – That is of course if you start from the time the first chapter is released. The idea reminds me a bit of episodic content which has been proven to be successful in mediums like video games and television.
The site is designed and developed by husband, Derek Gavey. Upon launch, the first chapter of “In My Solitude” was released.
A little bit more about Joleen:
I only started writing fiction about a year ago. It’s kind of a new thing. I say “kind of”, because I’ve always written things down, scribbled on scraps of paper, in notebooks.
The stories featured in the Secret Loft are about other people. Most of them are people I’ve never met. All of these people have their own secrets, but they also have some stories to share. So, this website is dedicated to presenting them in an accessible, beautiful way. It has already been a very interesting process. I hope that the stories prove a worthwhile diversion from reality; no one should have to spend too much time there.
On my way out from the last film I saw at the Monarch, I was handed a business card with the statement, “Our new website is up with showtimes”. Which I thought was weird at the time since I have already used the “new” websites for viewing showtimes… but then as I wondered, I realized that, the website had not been updated in a while. I didn’t really think about it, until I was linked to themonarch.net which seemed weird. I didn’t remember it being a .network domain? Wait a second, what is this? It looked like the website took a step back in web design by 8 years. What’s with nothing lining up, what’s with the color scheme, why is there a tab-style menu not being used as tab-style navigation?
I was perturbed by this a bit, so I went to the Monarch’s twitter page (which also has not been updated in awhile), but it linked to themonarch.ca from there. Phew, the old site is actually still there. Wait a second… did I just get a new Twitter notification? @monarchmedhat is now following me. What? The Monarch is already following me… wait a second, this is a second Twitter account now, the original seemingly left behind just like the site, the original being @monarchtheatre.
When the re-brand was completed for The Monarch, I was a fan of the logo and color scheme presented on the site which showcased it in a consistent manner. It was definitely a throwback to many elements found in design in the 1950’s and even earlier which worked well with the idea/image of The Monarch. The website matched this aesthetic and as far as I know, Rapscallion Design was wholly responsible for the identity, branding, and web design. So what’s going on here exactly? I already have stated a little bit to why this is a huge step backwards for The Monarch brand, but let’s visualize it…
New site/old site
I didn’t post this solely for the reason of bashing the design, but I can’t understand why this would be happening? Say there was a falling out between two parties, you would expect the one party to release the website to them if they need it updated for themselves. They could take it and host it somewhere else and update it as they see fit. At the very least, there shouldn’t be two websites for the same business operating at the same time, let alone, two domains, two Twitter accounts, and next, maybe two Facebook fan pages?
New CFCA Website
The Community Food Connection Association has just launched a new website for their unique organization. The CFCA is a non-profit organization made up of volunteers, agencies and community members concerned about food, nutrition, health and social justice as well as the environment and local agriculture.
The new website focuses on updating the looks and aesthetics of the old site as well updating the resources available on the site. Some of the initiatives of the association now include: Good Food Club, Community Kitchens, Community Gardens, and the Food Charter. The initiatives help to bring concepts of both local food and food security in a community-type environment to Medicine Hat. New community functions and interactive elements are also scheduled as future updates on the new site.
In related news, the CFCA will be presenting the documentary, Food, Inc. at the Monarch Theatre tomorrow night (Monday, March 8th at 6:30PM). Read about the event here.
Previously posted about on Sean’s article in early September, 2009, was news that the Google Car was spotted around town taking images for Google’s Street View service within the Google Maps application. It’s been awhile, but the day has finally come! Google Street View is now live for all of Medicine Hat (well most of it anyways). Unfortunately due to the age of the current satellite photo of Medicine Hat, all of the new development area in the south of the city was not recorded; however, it is possible that the car recorded the streets and will be added once the actual roads are added. CHAT TV also did a brief report on the subject:
Santa Claus Fund Online Auction Website
The Medicine Hat News Santa Claus Fund is having an online auction starting today and finishing on December 16th. I previously posted about their new website and now we have an online auction version of their site as well. It seems like more and more organizations and charitable services in the city are taking the plunge and going digital, sometimes exclusively; however, you still have to come pick up your items at the Medicine Hat News building – in person!
There’s tons of items up for bidding (over 50) by many sponsors all throughout the city. Many local companies and businesses have graciously donated services and inventory to the Santa Claus Fund in hopes of making money for the organization. As many know, the Santa Claus Fund gives back to local needy families and individuals during the Christmas season, but also throughout the whole year. As with any online auction, be weary of those last minute bidders that snatch up your items!
At the end of bidding and if you are the winner of any item(s), you are able to pay via PayPal, or you can pay with cash/debit/credit card in person when you pick up your item(s) at the Medicine Hat News building.
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