The Process

The team at Big Giant Media consists of Graphic Artists, Website Developers and Marketing Specialists who will use their talent, skill and years of experience to create an appealing, built-to-order solution to fulfill your needs.

We're aware that the development process may hold many surprises for you along the way: extraordinary design solutions you may not have considered, cutting-edge technology you haven't heard about, or oblique terminology you might not understand. With an open-door consultation policy during the entire development process, you can rest assured the Development Team at Big Giant Media will explain all of the options available to you at every stage, describe how your project will work in terms you’ll understand, and guide you in making informed decisions along the way.

Logo Development

The creation of a new Business Logo is a delicate and intricate process. As perhaps the most visible representation of an organization’s unique personality, a logo appears on everything from business cards and stationery, to brochures, catalogs, merchandise, apparel, and the Internet. Often, a logo is the first thing a potential client or customer sees; and sometimes the only thing they remember. Therefore, it’s of the utmost importance to have a logo that accurately and dynamically represents your company or organization.

At Big Giant Media, Logo Development is a multi-step process designed to ensure a properly executed new identity for your business. Before beginning work on your new look, our Graphic Artists will collect information concerning your ideas and concepts. Questions we might ask include:

What is your company's identity, and how should the new branding communicate that?
Who is your clientele, and what are your customer demographics?
How do you want your business viewed / regarded by the public?
What are some keywords you would use to describe the essence of what you do?
Do you consider your business conservative or progressive; traditional or unconventional; trendy or cutting-edge; or something else?
In what ways do you plan to utilize your new logo?
What elements do you like or dislike about other logos you’ve seen?

Our Graphic Artists will then research your competition to determine the approaches they have taken in the development of their own branding, examining which elements of their designs work well, and which don’t. The information collected will be used to position your business or organization within your market segment in a competitive and dynamic way. Once the design strategy has been established, development of the artwork can begin in earnest.

As part of the early development process, our Graphic Artists will explore multiple design solutions for your new logo. Each viable concept will be developed into a “rough,” or preliminary sample for you to view. At the completion of the first phase, Big Giant Media will present, either in person or electronically, a collection of roughs representing divergent concepts from which you may designate a design for further development. If our preliminary set of design roughs fails to meet your criteria, we will provide a second set for your subsequent consideration.

Once one or more roughs have been designated for further development, Big Giant Media will work to refine the concepts, as needed, to your specifications by creating a collection of varying treatments of the original designs. In this stage, changes are subtle, but nonetheless important. Variations could include minor graphic tweeks, fonts changes, logo compisition, or shifts in color scheme, among other things. This phase will continue until a final design has been approv ed.

And just like that, your logo is ready is to use.

Your new design will be available in a number of different file formats for your usage, including tiff, gif, jpeg, pdf, Photoshop, and Illustrator files to name a few. Or, you can chose to have Big Giant Media develop further applications featuring your new logo like letterhead, business cards, brochures, or a website.

And please feel free to contact the Graphic Artists working on your new logo at any time to discuss any ideas or considerations you might have during the development process. Creating a logo is a collaborative effort, and we want you involved all the way through. We are always available and interested in talking to you about how you feel the development of your new logo is proceeding.

Website Development

Because of the intricacy of website development, there are many phases in the conception and construction of your new site. As our Website Development Team works through these steps, they will take the seeds of your vision and create a vibrant and resilient extension of your business. In all cases, your new site will meet your exacting criteria;, but in most cases, it will also exceed your wildest expectations.

Phase One is the initial consultation. Our Website Development Team will meet with you to discuss in detail what functionality you will require from your new website. Will it be a brochure site, a catalog site, a content-managed site, or an e-commerce site? What back-end support will be necessary to make it operate? Will it include a forum, a blog, or a specialized calendaring system? How will it interface with social networking sites? By which queries will it return optimized search engine results?

We will also discuss presentation requirements concerning how you want your new website to look. Questions we might ask include:

How should your company's current branding be extended to the new website?
Who is your clientele, and what are your customer demographics?
Which is more important to your business model - innovative design, or robust content delivery?
Do you consider your business conservative or progressive; traditional or unconventional; trendy or cutting-edge; or something else?
What elements do you like or dislike about other websites you’ve seen?

For Phase Two, our Website Development Team will take the information you have given us regarding the structure and content of your website, and use it to construct a complete schematic of the site’s layout and functionality. Think of it as a working blueprint. Aside from determining the overall site architecture, the schematic will also establish which individual elements – from both a graphic and programming standpoint – need to be developed for each section of your site.

In Phase Three, our Graphic Artists will compile your design preferences, and in close consultation with the newly developed site schematic, begin storyboarding the site interfaces. In the early stages of this phase, the focus is placed on usability, or the ability of your customers and clients to easily navigate your website and find the information that most interests them. Once usability is optimized, we work on developing the graphic model that will determine the overall look-and-feel of the entire site.

A specific design concept will be developed into a storyboard “rough,” or preliminary sample, for you to view. Usually, this rough will be populated with placeholder content, and will be a static, non-animated representation of the site’s proposed design. Often our Graphic Artists will explain to you their vision about button operation or other animated or dynamic elements that have yet to be developed. Upon your approval of the initial storyboard rough for further development, Big Giant Media will work to refine the concept, as needed, to your specifications. If our preliminary storyboard fails to meet your criteria, we will provide a second storyboard rough for your subsequent consideration.

Once the artwork for your new website has been approved, construction can begin; this is Phase Four. Our Graphic Artists will be joined in this phase by Programmers and Application Specialists to convert the finalized storyboard into an actual working website. During this construction process, your actual website will slowly take shape, online, in the quiet recesses of the clandestine Big Giant Media construction zone. Our team will email you a link to the site, giving you access to view, at any hour of the day, any day of the week, how construction is progressing. Feel free to email or call with concerns or comments at any point; our Web Development Team expects your ongoing input along the way.

Many things happen during Phase Four. Your new website’s skeleton will take shape first. This includes any databases and navigation systems that will be used throughout the site. Also, the primary interface, or main page, will be built, with animated or dynamic elements added as necessary. Then gradually, our team will begin linking buttons to various sub-pages within the site. Each time a major section is completed, our team will notify you via email. Feel free to come in and check it out; you won’t be in our way. The Programmers and Application Specialists will then set to work carefully coding all of the special features your site might require, such as input forms, forums, blogs, or e--commerce stores, linking them to the appropriate destinations. And then, before you know it, your site is almost complete.

In Phase Five, our Programmers and Application Specialists will take your site out for a shakedown. Before construction is officially complete, our team will pour over your newly constructed site, beta-testing all of its functions to make absolutely sure that everything works correctly. This includes double-checking that buttons are linked properly, that input forms are receiving information and delivering it to the correct destination, that databases interact accurately, and e-commerce stores process orders in the appropriate manner. Our team will also take the time to trim down file sizes as much as possible to ensure that your site loads and responds as quickly as possible. By the end of Phase Five, your site will be a freshly tuned machine ready to get to work.

The final phase of website development at Big Giant Media is your site’s launch. For Phase Six, our team will transfer every published file we have created to the server of your choice, creating any mailboxes or data collection areas that your site might require. In order to best utilize our capability to provide follow-up support, we recommend that our clients make use of the Big Giant Media in-house web server. We offer all the technology necessary for your site to be a true workhorse: Macromedia Cold Fusion, MS SQL database support, email servers, and more. With one last run-through to make sure everything works, the development process comes to a close. Your website is now open for business!