Christ Church launches its redesigned site!




One of Memphis' most recognizable churches, Christ Church United Methodist, launched its newly redesigned site last week. Christ Church has worked with SPEAK! for several years now, and its latest website redesign is representative of the level of collaboration that exists between SPEAK! and each of our clients. Christ Church wanted a website that was cleanly presented but that also presented information to all of its audiences on the home page. These seemingly disparate ideas were melded into a fantastic new website design that is rich in information without being overwhelming in the least.

The Flash presentation on the home page clearly ties in Christ Church's model for spiritual growth, the dropdown navigation presented on the site is a new take on a very familiar site function and the Christ College shell creates a distinct look for this key ministry of Christ Church. All-in-all, the new website takes advantage of the latest in website design and the latest in functionality from our ever expanding CMS, SiteWrench 4.0.

UPDATE: It looks like others are digging the new design for Christ Church - Church Beauty just listed the site!

Posted by team@speakcreative.com at 3:50 PM | 0 comments

New Memphis in May Site Launched!




If you live in the Southeast, or if you keep up with Food Network, odds are good that you've heard of Memphis in May. Memphis in May is best known for its incredible Beale Street Music Festival (millions of visitors flock to the site within hours of the participating bands being announced) and the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (pretty much the holy grail of barbecue). And well... that was the problem that Memphis in May presented to SPEAK!. You see, Memphis in May is a month long series of programs and events, and while the music and barbecue events are by far the most well attended, Memphis in May wants to bring attention to all of the activities that go on throughout the month. So SPEAK! was faced with a unique challenge: build an easy to navigate site that gives equal exposure to all of the different events/programs of Memphis in May while doing nothing to take away the importance of the music and barbecue events. A pretty tall order by any standards.The new website addresses all of the clients desires with an incredibly logical navigation structure that clearly communicates that Memphis in May is much more than just music and barbecue. The site itself gives Memphis in May the opportunity to express much more personality than its previous website, and we've given Memphis in May maximum editability of its site by building the large photo banners on each shell to be updatable by the client. We even increased Memphis in May's ability to bring in ad revenue by building in more available ad space than its previous website.At SPEAK!, we're incredibly excited to see the launch of this new website. Memphis in May is a cornerstone of what makes Memphis great, and we're very proud to be playing such an important role in its continued success.
Posted by team@speakcreative.com at 11:07 AM | 0 comments

Thursday Lunch: Newks

The SPEAK! team got together today to once again enjoy a lunch together. Our destination this time? Newk's. This Mississippi-born restaurant franchise is one of the team's favorite places to eat. Of course, it helps that everyone on the team can find something that they love on the menu at Newk's.

The team's orders ranged from pizza to soup to salads and sandwiches. Like we said, a little bit of everything. Once the food got passed around, the conversation focused mainly on our normal subjects (TV, what are some cool upcoming projects, plans for the weekend, etc). Alas, no talk of hoverboards this week.
Posted by team@speakcreative.com at 11:04 AM | 0 comments

Great American Home Store Site Launched



SPEAK! Creative is happy to announce the launching of Great American Home Store's completely redesigned website. Great American Home Store approached SPEAK! a few months ago with a unique challenge - they have an inventory system of over 6,000 products that they wanted to be integrated into its new website. Of course, they wanted an incredible looking website to boot.

SPEAK! rose up to the challenge. The design of the site came together over the course of our design process, and once we put the finishing touches on the website design, we built SiteWrench into the back-end for content management. We leveraged SiteWrench's "catalog only" mode of its Store application to build a foundation for displaying all of Great American Home Store's products. Our developers then set to create a custom application that would interface with Great American Home Store's inventory system. The site is updated with new product automatically every day with this custom application. Within hours of launch, Great American Home Store was already receiving inquiries through its new online storefront!

Of course, the products area is not the only feature of the site. Great American Home Store can easily feature its television commercials from the home page, update content on the fly with SiteWrench and offer eNewsletter subscriptions for consumers to find out about the latest specials. SPEAK! is also working with Great American Home Store on search engine optimization strategies to make insure as much online visibility as possible.

Want to see the site for yourself? Click here.
Posted by team@speakcreative.com at 11:03 AM | 0 comments