Big Sea’s Top 7 Projects of 2015

The year end is always a milestone, and this year is no different. On top of the exciting merger between ThinkTank and Big Sea, we are thrilled to have been able to work with some of our dream clients over the past year. We designed and developed some pretty complex and innovative sites and apps. We’ve had the great fortune to establish new marketing partnerships, with great results, and we’ve strengthened long-standing relationships too.

Here is a list of our favorite projects of 2015.

The City of St. Petersburg: Our favorite city gave us the freedom to design something that reflects the vibrant, hip vibe of our sunshine city. We provided consulting, content strategy, design and front-end development for this project, working with the City’s own internal marketing team to fight for a user-first approach and eradicate the silos that had formed by their internal structure. Yes, we had to reorganize over 3,400 pages of poorly maintained content, tiptoe with diplomacy through a political gauntlet, and make sure there was some way to make paying a parking bill just a little bit more enjoyable. But the results are still pretty great!
The University of Tampa: This historic University needed a modern and mobile-friendly facelift to serve multiple audiences, and we delivered just that. We provided content strategy, design and front-end development, complete with a fully modular design system that allows their internal web staff to create new page templates easily as they need them. We love the intuitive yet thorough navigation interface, the reusable photo gallery layout, as well as the inviting Admissions page designed with prospective students in mind.
WMNF 88.5 FM: Big Sea has been working with this progressive community radio station for quite some time, so it was only natural they turned to us when they were ready for a total overhaul. We designed this site to showcase their newsroom’s frequent content showpieces, built a custom streaming audio player, and an interface to organize their archived playlists and show content. Built on WordPress so that their writers can add posts and articles frequently and easily, this site also features a custom ticketing and event manager and a pretty slick program schedule (check it on mobile!).
Mote Marine’s “Who Wants to be a Sea Star?” Interactive Game Exhibit: We love this project because it gave us the opportunity to do something a little outside our normal web design wheelhouse. We designed, animated, and developed a multi-player, reality TV-style science quiz exhibit for Mote Marine’s new “Oh Baby: Life Cycles of the Seas” exhibit. The game featured four tablet kiosks, each a different sea creature character related to the exhibit, and aquarium visitors can play each other (or the game itself) in a round of quick-draw trivia. The exhibit was installed in February of 2015, and has been running without a hitch ever since.
Stetson University College of Law‘s Admissions Marketing: Inbound marketing is by no means a new approach to marketing, but it certainly is a new approach for most universities. When Stetson Law’s communications department knew they needed to try something new to stay ahead of the game, they turned to Big Sea to implement their first comprehensive inbound marketing strategy. We spent a couple months researching their landscape, then began execution on a comprehensive admissions marketing plan that includes blogging, email, marketing automation, and social media. We’re excited to see the University thinking strategically about an approach that will help fill their funnel for years to come — not just for the next academic year.
American Stage: When this local creative theater company needed a complete brand refresh, they turned to ThinkTank — now, Big Sea. We created a bold logo with variations for their different divisions, and plastered it all over their building in creative signage and experiential exhibits. Of course, a new website was a part of their new look as well, and we are looking forward to helping them grow through an ongoing marketing partnership.
Cigar City Brewing Hunahpu’s Day App: Technically, this event falls in 2016 but we created the simple website and the custom event app in 2015. This will be the first time they use an app rather than printed journals to guide visitors through the epic beer festival. The problem with print is that it’s final: in previous years, each brewery was required to submit the beers they assumed they’d be bringing weeks prior to the actual event. If a beer didn’t turn out or anything changed, there was no way to update the printed guidebooks with what they actually brought. Enter data-driven digital! We created an interface for each brewery to add and edit the beers they’re bringing to the event — and their list can be edited up to the very last minute to ensure accuracy. The app downloads the very long list of breweries and beers from the database, and stores them locally on each user’s device, eliminating the frustration inherent with the spotty connection inevitable at an event of this size.

We are thankful — as always — to be afforded the luxury to do what we love, with people and clients we love. We wish you all good health, incredible happiness, and much success in 2016.