As the finishing touches are just being put to www.gtc.org.uk phase two, it's more than time to reflect on a successful years work for the Guild of Television Cameraman.
Phase One was brought about by the need for wholesale change to the organisations online presence. Facing testing industry conditions and aging and reducing membeship numbers, Diablo were brought onboard as technological partner to oversee the development of a completely new online strategy to incorporate moving many member services online, to free up essential budgets and broaden the GTC's appeal to a younger more techno savvy audience.
Following detailed research Diablo firstly delivered a reworked logotype and supporting house style. Taking the original GTC brand and bringing it up-to-date without compromising the core elements which had been in place for over 30 years. Once the logo was delivered, the brand was applied across all supporting stationery, membership literature and advertising.
With these elements in place work could begin on the fundamental task of developing www.gtc.org.uk.
The brief was a complex one: To design and develop a website which would be the driving force behind the GTC for years to come. Delivering a vast array of membership services and information to registered users, whilst also carrying topical, up-to-date industry news to all users, members and non-members alike. The site needed to promote the GTC as a leading industry membership body and therefore increasing membership take-up wordwide. The site would need a comprehensive yet simple Content Management System to enable daily updates by GTC members with limited technical know-how. Above all the site was to be a vehicle for the members themselves, enabling them to interact directly with the GTC, promoting members to Directors and Producers worldwide, whilst also bringing the membership community together as a body for the good of the industry.
After 4 months of design, development and testing, the redesigned www.gtc.org.uk was ready for deployment in October 2008, hitting deadline with a month to spare ready for the 2008 GTC Awards at the British Film Institute, Southbank, London.
The all new site brings together multiple technologies and delivers elegant, highly-accessible, search-engine-friendly design with comprehensive and clear navigation and search. The sites content structure allows separate areas for news, calendar events, GTC information and incoming RSS feeds as well as a full ecommerce store with PayPal integration for the online distribution of GTC publications. All GTC news and info can be syndicated via RSS, whilst the entire site has user commenting facility to encourage industry discussion on relevant topics. The site includes 'teasers' for member-only' content, the depth of which is vast and increasing, in order to promote member sign-up. The member-only features include access to extensive members-only content, richly-featured, easy-to-manage, password protected, member profiles which include highly secure privacy settings on per-item content and opt-out options for member search.
In order to deliver all this rich content, the site was built with detailed content management features including create, edit and delete pages, add text, hyperlinks, images and downloads. As well as fully configurable site navigation build, the editors can set keywords per page, control comments per page, add sale items and pricing, and assign viewing permissions per page (Visitors, Members, Council Members).
View the Guild of Television Cameramen website.
The site launch went very smoothly with a 2 month soft launch and testing period followed by a full public launch at the BFI, London.
Client reaction has been thoroughly positive:
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After 4 months of design, development and testing, the redesigned www.gtc.org.uk was ready for deployment in October 2008, hitting deadline with a month to spare ready for the 2008 GTC Awards at the British Film Institute, Southbank, London.
The all new site brings together multiple technologies and delivers elegant, highly-accessible, search-engine-friendly design with comprehensive and clear navigation and search. The sites content structure allows separate areas for news, calendar events, GTC information and incoming RSS feeds as well as a full ecommerce store with PayPal integration for the online distribution of GTC publications. All GTC news and info can be syndicated via RSS, whilst the entire site has user commenting facility to encourage industry discussion on relevant topics. The site includes 'teasers' for member-only' content, the depth of which is vast and increasing, in order to promote member sign-up. The member-only features include access to extensive members-only content, richly-featured, easy-to-manage, password protected, member profiles which include highly secure privacy settings on per-item content and opt-out options for member search.
In order to deliver all this rich content, the site was built with detailed content management features including create, edit and delete pages, add text, hyperlinks, images and downloads. As well as fully configurable site navigation build, the editors can set keywords per page, control comments per page, add sale items and pricing, and assign viewing permissions per page (Visitors, Members, Council Members).
View the Guild of Television Cameramen website.
The site launch went very smoothly with a 2 month soft launch and testing period followed by a full public launch at the BFI, London.
Client reaction has been thoroughly positive:
When the Guild approached Diablo we had a website which had been good in its day, but hadn't kept up with the evolution of the internet. We had lots of ideas, but little understanding of how they could be achieved or how much they would cost. We were impressed that from the beginning Diablo picked up on what we needed, and adapted our ideas into a format which was achievable and stylish. Planning meetings were characterised by a satisfying exchange of ideas.
One of our main requirements was that we could generate our own content without needing any deep technical knowledge, and Diablo were happy to set up an appropriate content management system and support our editor as she took her first steps.
We had a fairly tight deadline in order to launch at the Guild's annual Awards Event, and Diablo kept us on course. There were the inevitable problems at the testing stage but they were quickly resolved.
After the website went live Diablo were available when needed, making improvements as required.
We had to keep an eye on finances, and asked Diablo to warn us when our ideas were pushing up costs; they were punctilious in this respect.
At the time of writing the website has now been up and running for nine months and has taken on a life of its own, but Diablo are still around if we have a problem. All in all, we are very satisfied with the way Diablo handled the project, and we are now back with them planning an extension of the scope of the site.
John Hoare, GTC Treasurer May 2009.That extension of the site is now very much in the final stages of development, more news as it happens.
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