Sometime over the last 24 hours, our crack team of programmers and designers have unleashed the latest version of the SUMO Heavy Industries corporate website.

History SUMO Heavy Industries has been officially in business since May of 2010. After creating the initial visual identity, we quickly put together the site on WordPress and launched. We were quite pleased (at the time) that we were able to put together a decent looking site in such a short window of time.

But, as is the case of most design firms and interactive agencies, as we grew we had a case of ‘the cobbler’s son has no shoes’. (For those that don’t get the reference, we were basically selling a service that we sorely needed ourselves.) This isn’t unusual in the service business – you’re too busy growing the business and keeping customers happy. Something’s got to give, and most times it’s the self-promotion/marketing that falls short.

The Process: Throw It All Up and See What Sticks
 I’ve been bitching about the old site design for some time – it didn’t showcase our strengths as an eCommerce agency, but mostly because I allowed a hideous photo of myself to used in my bio.

Since, I’m the lead creative here at SUMO, it was up to me to herd the cats get some ideas presented and move the design process forward. And from experience, the hardest story to tell is about yourself. Also, our Team Leaders come from three very different disciplines – designer, programmer, business development – so we all see things very differently. This is a good thing for client work because it enables us to work as a cohesive unit to get projects up and out. Working on internal projects, however, is a whole other ball game. Each of us has a different set of expectations. Luckily, there’s no ego-tripping here; at the end of the day we’re all looking to build something that we can be proud of (and hopefully make some scratch).

So, we went through the first set of concepts like a kid on a sugar buzz. Trying different concepts, styles, typography. Throwing in bells, removing whistles. Which is OK in the initial stages. Throw it all in. The hard part is removing enough so it looks good, but not sacrificing message or continuity. And all the while trying not to come off as gimmicky, or showcase a design fad that will look dated in 6 months. We originally started off with a one-page design…which quickly morphed into the design you see here.

Some of the design elements that didn’t make it onto the site (‘ribbons’ are so February 2010).

Once we decided where we were headed, I kept my head in Photoshop for a few weeks tweaking the page concepts and sharing ideas with the team. We all work remotely, so using online chat keeps things moving quickly (while also attending to client work). One tool that really helps us to visualize how a site will function in the real world is the InVision app (see my gushing school-girl review of InVision here). This application allows you to create working prototypes that you can share and comment on with your team or clients. It helped us move more quickly through the design process, but more importantly, it helped identify UX issues before writing any code.

Filling in the Blanks
 Now that we had the design roughed in, we began filling in the content. Writing up the client pages was easy. ‘Less is more’ when writing for the web. Also, we understand that most folks have the attention span of a mosquito, so we kept it short and simple. We know, you just want to see the pretty pictures.

Moving Forward
 We’re already discussing the next version of the site, as we know we’ll outgrow this one before we know it. This time, we’ll be working on the new one before the old one loses its spark. Or until I get sick of my photo.

We’d love your feedback on the new site. Leave a comment or send your praise (or scorn) to hello@sumoheavy.com.