Pocitacovka asked me to present them as a fresh and modern company operated by young people who are not boring and get the stuff done. They also needed something that will help them stands out in the crowd of IT businesses.
First I looked at the structure of the old website and some analytics data which helped me to come up with structural changes and ideas for simplification. I wanted the whole thing to be as simple as posible with just enough information. I teamed up with copywriter Šárka Petruželová who helped me handle the copy for the website.
From the begining I knew I wanted to use some fun IT related characters as a main visual comical feature of the new website. Client loved the idea so I felt confident to proceed and put some ideas on the paper first. Then I put everything in Marvel and created an interactive prototype of the new UX design. After some testing and consultations with the client I was ready to create the final design and code it.
I wanted to put a nice surprise at the end as a reward for those who submit the contact form. So after designing the initial "boring" version of the contact form I decided I need to increase the comedy level and went back to drawing board. Inspired by the ending of Dr. Strangelove I came up with a much better way to handle the form submission.
Lucky for me, my client was just like me. Against conservative approach, looking for something new.
When I researched Pocitacovka's competitors nobody really stood out and frankly now I don't even remember what brands I looked at. This website needed to be very different so I spent quite a bit of time figuring out the best visual and technical approach for this project. After sketching out a lot of ideas and thinking about their technical implementation I settled for the idea of making short animated videos with characters that represent each area of Pocitacovka's areas of services. Client was very happy with the idea and gave me a green light. I ended up making four primary character types which I modeled in 3D, rigged and animated and rendered.
The process of coding didn't bring many technical challenges except for having to battle the browser video color corretion so I could match the video backgrounds to the background of the website for seamless look. The website didn't require any super advanced back-end engine so went with good ol' Wordpress.
Working on a new website for Pocitacovka was a lot of fun. In the end I was happy to make something that not only put a smile on my client's face but also increased the traffic and conversion rates and is generally more user friendly website than its predescessor.
