When Christopher approached us he was looking to revitalize his brand to give it a “look and feel” that not only manifested the designer he had become but who was growing into. He felt his previous website, built in Flash, was too cold and uninviting and now wanted to showcase his work in a more minimalist way.

Christopher is not just an interior designer, but an artisan, creating inviting spaces and designing his own line of custom furniture. His brand needed to reflect the warmth and connectedness he infuses in the spaces he builds. Whether retail, commercial or residential, Christopher’s brand now combines an elegant sophistication with a bit of humor and quirkiness.

Visit Christopher’s New Website

After the completion of the website rebranding, Rootid also participated in a top to bottom analysis of SEM/SEO strategy for the company.  Rootid created a strategic plan to increase web traffic through text advertising campaign in Google AdWords and Facebook.  Rootid also completed a master plan to increase organic page rank results as well as an external link building campaign to improve TeenSources.org’s search ranking.

Take a look at the site.

The staff over at Bananas didn’t just needed a simple upgrade to their website, but one that would allow them room to grow and add more complex features in the years to come.

Their new site (built using Drupal 7) has a re-organized Site Architecture that makes navigation much easier and will have a custom calendar where users can sign up for classes and receive updates. Though the site is still in process, we look forward to launching it in February 2012!

(in progress)

Swords to Plowshares’ mission is more relevant today than ever before. Their programs serve veterans with compassion and empathy by employing a model of peers supporting peers—leveraging a sense of teamwork and camaraderie that veterans identify with.

In order for Swords to remain successful and grow, the organization needs to deepen their relationships with current constituents, while broadening their reach to the larger San Francisco Bay Area as well as nationwide. This means more effective story-telling and fundraising efforts in order to inspire donors of all kinds to invest in Swords’ mission.

We began by assessing their communication and development related activities and then created a cohesive strategy focused on a more directed and campaign driven approach— founded on community building and donor cultivation.

STEP 1: Website Re-Design and Development
- Brand Recognition/ Consistency
- Improved User Experience

Check out the new Swords to Plowshares Website!

Working with our design partners at Provoc, we built this custom drupal site from the ground up. They were looking for a more robust website that allowed users to search their immense amounts of data in a more user friendly and optimized way.

To begin, we built a custom importer to sort and analyze their data so that thousands of records could be input and categorized quickly and effectively. A specialized map and search module were built to locate schools that have been surveyed, what courses have been included and a variety of other necessary resources–all quickly and easily accessible. With rankings systems, sliders to guide students towards specific areas of focus, highlighted content areas and a custom comparison module to allow users to view schools’ statistics side-by-side—Beyond Grey Pinstripes is an incredible resource for those looking for the most “sustainable” MBA program worldwide.

Visit their new website: Beyond Grey Pinstripes

In the summer of 2011, two Habitat for Humanity affiliates in the San Francisco Bay Area were presented with a joint marketing opportunity that would bring the affiliates together to collaborate on a Bay-wide awareness campaign.  Having previously acted in separate capacities in their marketing efforts, the affiliates worked closely with Rootid to take their social media presence, which was the core of the organic marketing campaign engagement, to the next level.

The artwork, created by DraftFCB, for the Bay Area wide campaign was a visual centerpiece for the “Built by the Bay” campaign, so Rootid focused on creating an interactive campaign that re-enforced the amazing visuals seen on billboards around the region. We created the “Built By The Bay Billboard Contest.”

Participants submitted photos of how their Bay-Area style made their engagement with the Habitat mission unique. The result was a colorful array of the amazing personalities that compose the “Habitat Family” and make the local affiliates of an international organization unique in the way they carry out their mission.

The Built By The Bay photo contest was a huge success and tripled the following of the Bay Area social media base.

When we started working with DigitWhiz in December 2010, who knew where we would end up. Founder and CEO Kasey Brown wanted to change the design of her math game website so that it felt more “real”. The games she and her programmer, Elliot Feingold, had built had amazing content, but needed some help in the delivery and messaging. Our intent was to for students to get excited to play and for parents and teachers to receive the stats they needed to assess student progress.

We began by updating their logo, creating a custom “Digi” character that would act as a help and guide through the site, and then changed the background of the site to replicate a real desktop for kids to play their games on. Once the redesign was complete, we began working on the copy-writing and messaging. We designed a slideshow based on the new DigitWhiz messaging, a video tour that gives users a brief overview of how the site works, and updated the first time User’s Experience…so that newbie’s would know what to do and where to go. Throughout this process, we also redesigned the artwork of all of the DigitWhiz games so that they would match the new branding and have more “interaction”.

DigitWhiz is due to Beta launch in Fall 2011, so check it out and see if you can sign up!

We began working with OperaWorks in Fall 2009. We were originally brought in to redesign their website, but soon the project blossomed into much more. Through our discussions with Founder, Ann Baltz about the redesign of their website we recognized that the entire brand needed to be updated and made into a more cohesive unit across all of their marketing and communications streams. It is very important to Ann that she maintain an “out of the box” feeling to her company so we designed visual language with this in mind. She wanted everything to feel like a performance, but still remain professional and direct. She called it, “a tuxedo with red silk underwear beneath”. So, her homepage became just that. A grid with square elements that break out, a multitude of slideshows going at different rates, and a background of blue lights that almost look like they are moving. We then applied this same motif to her collateral materials including, company brochure, event postcards, tradeshow banners, and much more.

Ann is a visionary. And she wanted continued help “actualizing” the potential of her organization so she asked us to do ongoing business and marketing strategy consultations. Through these conversations we decided to focus on building a stronger community amongst her 1500+ alumni who reside all over the world. So we built her a facebook page and began discussing how best to build an Alumni Association. Since that time, the Facebook page is thriving, we have begun to have online events for Alumni and even created a custom Alumni Association Website where alums can create individual profiles, have access to job postings and mentorship opportunities.

Click here to visit their Website,  Facebook Page or visit their Alumni site!

Kenya (MF-K) is an indigenous community health initiative with the experience and systems in place to meet donor requirements as well as the needs of the communities they serve.

When Rootid co-founders Valerie and Andrew were first hired by the Matibabu Foundation in 2009, Matibabu was one organization with a US-based foundation and Kenyan-based NGO. As our re-branding work began, their board quickly realized that the organization needed to be divided, so the US-based organization was renamed Tiba Foundation, leaving the original name “Matitbabu” to its Kenyan counter-part.

For the Matibabu Foundation in Kenya, they wanted a visual language that was clean and modern while still staying true to their original logo and roots in the Kenyan flag. They have a very deep sense of community that we wanted to highlight and functionality-wise give a way for many layers of information to be accessed quickly and easily. We also needed to be sensitive to internet speeds in Kenya, so this site is very simple and to the point, with optimized images and little to no “bells and whistles”. Though their site has not officially launched yet, you can see it under construction.

Visit Matibabu Foundation

The Tiba Foundation wanted a site that was easy for them to update, highlighted the mission and services of their organization and had integrated social media front and center. Since this website is directed towards donor and volunteer cultivation, it was important for both these constituencies to feel they are joining a thriving community from the start. Their new logo and branding is clean and modern, but retains a sense of “grounded earthiness”— a visual tie to the Matibabu Foundation’s original logo.

We also built Tiba a simple blog for their board, volunteers and other community members to share their stories, pictures and videos. The blog has both Facebook and Flickr feeds for quick access to Tiba’s other web assets.

Visit Tiba Foundation