community Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Brown Bear Creative

Northeastern Connecticut Transit District Logo & Website

Role: Graphic Designer / Web Designer / Web Developer

The Northeastern Connecticut Transit District (NECTD) offers bus services to the northeastern CT towns of Brooklyn, Killingly, Putnam, Thompson, Eastford, Plainfield, Pomfret, Woodstock, and Union. They approached Brown Bear Creative to rebrand their organization and to produce a website that would house pertinent information about their services.

To reflect NECTD’s diverse service area comprising of both quiet countryside and bustling town centers, Brown Bear incorporated both farm and downtown imagery into a cohesive logo.

Like the logo, the website follows suit with a clean, straightforward look. Visitors to the site can easily access the information they need, including bus route maps, schedules, fares, and other details about riding the bus. Using the latest coding practices, Brown Bear ensured that the website is fast-to-load, search-engine-friendly, and accessible.

Launch Northeastern Connecticut Transit District Website »

Blue Hills Regional Technical School Website

Role: Web Designer / Web Developer

Blue Hills Regional Technical School, a vocational high school located in Canton, MA, was in need of a website that not only highlighted the wide range of shop programs they had to offer but one that showcased student and faculty pride.

Brown Bear Creative designed and developed a WordPress-powered website that captures prospective students’ interest while providing a comprehensive resource for current students, parents, and staff. Staying true to the Blue Hills Warrior colors, Brown Bear used a strong blue and green palette in the design. The site incorporates vivid photos and graphics to help reflect the wonderful sense of community at the school.

To ensure visitors can easily access information and documents, the site is laid out in an intuitive manner. A navigation menu with dropdowns at the top of every page provides a consistent source for page links throughout the site. A list of “Quick Links” located on the sidebar of every page makes popular links immediately accessible. Visitors can also use a search form at the top of the site to look for keywords.

As Blue Hills is a technical school, it was especially important to showcase its various vocational programs. Each shop has its own dedicated page that describes the program and features a slideshow of images of the facilities and students in action.

Using WordPress’s password-protected admin panel, Blue Hills staff have the ability to easily add school news and documents as well as edit the text and images on every page of the website. This capability allows them to keep parents and students up to date on school happenings.

Launch Blue Hills Regional Technical School Website »

The Great Animal Rescue Chase Identity Materials

Role: Graphic Designer / Web Designer

The Great Animal Rescue Chase is focused on bringing together a worldwide community of animal rescuers, sharing rescue stories, and inspiring more people to get involved in animal welfare.

Founder Laura Simpson approached Brown Bear Creative to design logos, business cards, and a website for the Great Animal Rescue Chase and its charity partner, the Harmony Fund. All the materials feature bright, vivid colors and inspirational animal imagery.

Although most of the website development was handled by Inorikunimi.com and Can 9 Software, Brown Bear contributed to the front-end HTML/CSS template development for the site.

Launch the Great Animal Rescue Chase Website »

Town of Lyme Official Website

Role: Web Designer / Web Developer

The Town of Lyme had shut down its website in the fall of 2008 when a new state law required towns to post meeting minutes and agendas online and on a deadline. The small town simply did not have the the manpower or the know-how to keep their site updated themselves in a timely manner.

After a long hiatus, the town came to Brown Bear Creative for a solution. Brown Bear developed a WordPress-powered website that the selectmen could easily update themselves without any coding knowledge.

Through an easy-to-use admin interface, the selectmen can update text and photos, add pages, upload documents, and post news to the website. Once they hit Publish, the changes to the site are instantaneous. This simplifies and streamlines the process of posting minutes and agendas online.

To capture the Town of Lyme’s unique qualities, such as their deep ties to the land and their rich historical background, Brown Bear designed the site to showcase Lyme’s farms, parks, waterways, and other picturesque town landmarks. A sleek photo slideshow in the masthead of every page allows visitors to manually scroll through the images or sit back and watch them fade in and out automatically. Photos are also peppered throughout the pages of the site and available in bulk in a photogallery.

Launch the Town of Lyme Website »

One Book, Every Young Child Logo and Website

Twelve libraries in southeastern Connecticut came together to organize a program that encourages parents and caregivers to read early and often to their preschool children. “One Book, Every Young Child” features a series of events that focuses around one picture book every year.

Using bold, bright colors, Brown Bear Creative designed the logo and website for the program. The website showcases the book of the year, incorporating the storybook’s illustrations into the design. Powered on the WordPress platform, the site can be easily updated using an intuitive, browser-based admin panel. A site administrator can edit any page of the site, including the homepage, news, and calendar.

Medford Public Schools Website

Role: Web Designer / Web Developer

Medford Public Schools in Massachusetts was in need of a comprehensive website that housed information and news not only for the district but for each of their nine schools as well. Brown Bear provided a robust content-managed solution powered by WordPress that teachers and other staff could update themselves.

The website features a clean, intuitive design with a blue and gray color scheme based on Medford’s school colors. The homepage and each school landing page highlight latest news, administrator contact details, and other essential information.

All the content, including pages, news posts, and sidebar data, on the site is editable via WordPress’s easy-to-use administration panel. Site editors can also upload photos, videos, and documents and place them throughout the site.

Launch Medford Public Schools Website »

Jog New London County Website

Role: Web Designer / Web Developer

Jog New London County is an online resource that offers descriptions, photos, and custom-drawn maps of running routes in Southeastern Connecticut. Panorama shots of scenic places to run are showcased in the masthead, invoking a “local” feel.

Aside from running routes, the site also provides upcoming local race information. All the race listings are housed in a database and editable via a Content Management System (CMS). Outdated races automatically disappear from the website. In this way, race listings stay fresh, current, and easily accessible.

Brown Bear also improved the site’s usability by including a search function at the top of every page.

Launch Jog New London County Website »

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Brown Bear was honored by the Connecticut Art Directors Club (CADC) at their 34th Annual Awards Show with a Silver Award for the design, development, and photography for the Jog New London County website. Read the full press release here.

In May 2010, Jog New London was featured on Fox61’s Daytrippers. Learn more and watch the video here.

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To help promote the website, Brown Bear Creative created fun illustrations for a turkey trot t-shirt.

Old Lyme’s Midsummer Festival Promotional Materials

Role: Graphic Designer / Web Designer / Web Developer

Old Lyme has held their annual Midsummer Festival for over 20 years. A celebration of the town’s artistic heritage, the festival was in need of promotional materials to showcase its many events.

Brown Bear Creative designed and developed a website that highlights the range of festivities and provides information about partners, sponsors, vendors, and directions/parking. Dynamic features include a Flash slideshow of rotating photos and captions on the homepage, as well as a custom-made, interactive Google map embedded on the Directions/Parking page.

Launch the Midsummer Festival Website »

To complement the Midsummer Festival website, Brown Bear designed bright, summery brochures, posters, sandwich boards, street banners, and web ads to promote the two-day event. The brochures provide a full schedule of events, parking information, and a custom-drawn map of the festival locations.

Brown Bear Creative has worked with the Midsummer Festival committee to update its website and print materials annually since 2008.

Town of Canterbury Official Website

Role: Web Designer / Web Developer

The Town of Canterbury needed a website they could easily update themselves. They chose Brown Bear to create an ADA-compliant website with a user-friendly Content Management System (CMS).

Updating the site via a CMS provided an easy way for Canterbury officials to comply with a state mandate to the Freedom of Information Act which required towns to post meeting minutes and agendas to their websites in a timely fashion.

The new site also features a Flash slideshow movie on the homepage that highlights Canterbury’s natural and cultural attractions. Other dynamic elements include a Selectman’s Blog, a photo gallery, and a calendar of events.

Out-of-towners can learn about Canterbury’s offerings, and residents can easily find application forms, board meeting agendas, meeting audio files, and information about town events, departments and community groups.

Launch Town of Canterbury Website »

Niantic’s Streetscape Enhancement Project Promotional Materials

Role: Graphic Designer / Illustrator

Niantic Main Street needed print materials to showcase their new revitalization project for downtown Niantic, CT: Niantic’s Streetscape Enhancement Project. The project consisted of adding new trees, street lights, benches, potted plants, and crosswalks to beautify the downtown area.

To reflect the vibrant new streetscape and generate excitement about the project, Brown Bear created brightly-colored brochures and posters with a fun streetscape illustration to signify the revitalization tone. Wave graphics helped tie together the overarching theme of “creating a splash” — making a difference in the beautification of the seaside town. Building on that idea further, Brown Bear designed a fundraising goal chart in the shape of a wave.