Our last website was launched in 2015 and a lot has changed since then. We have tripled our team size, we have moved offices, expanded our capabilities and now work on much larger, more complex and a wider range of projects, all over New Zealand. We decided it was beyond time to give GWE a refresh, contextually, visually and functionally. We are excited to show you how far we have come over the last few years.
Same values, better defined.
Just 3 years ago we were 12 staff and by the year’s end we will have expanded to 40 staff. With this growth has come new talent, new skills and new personalities. We now offer engineering and scientific services in the fields of environmental, geotechnical, land development and 3 waters engineering, and there is more to come. This led us to take a deeper look at who we are as a company and what sets us apart. Our values will remain the same but we found we needed to define who we are in a meaningful statement. After examining how we do business, what we set out to achieve for our clients and the communities they serve, how we think of the world around us and how this has branded the firm and our staff we developed the following tagline,
“Creative Thinking | Better Environments”
In addition to adopting our new tagline we decided to express ourselves to the market as GWE Consulting Engineers, rather than use our registered business name, GWE Consulting Ltd so there is no doubt about the type of consulting we do. And, we were frequently referred to as GWE Consulting Engineers anyway, so it made complete sense.
With these changes in place, we set out to redesign and develop our website.
Contextually
It’s important to show who we are as a company, but even more important to tell visitors to our website what we can do for them. We recognise it’s ultimately all about you, not us. We truly regard every client and project as a partnership so we wanted to reflect that throughout the site.
So, how did we accomplish this?
We totally rethought the Home page and produced an very engaging page that provides a range of information bites that lead you to all corners of the website with a single click,
We expanded our About Us tab to let you know more about who we are, how we work, what drives us and what we believe makes us different. We also introduce our leaders, the people who are shaping the future of GWE,
We improved our Services tab that describes each service on its own page and links off to a capability statement that details that service in action,
We created a Work Sector page that lists the different sectors in which we work and links off to related project summaries for those interested in learning more about our relevant experience,
We have built a better Blog with more interesting content published on a regular basis. This is something we’ve wanted to do for a while but always struggled to make it happen while balancing client work,
We designed a Work With Us page that allows you to explore career opportunities while at the same time learning what it is really like to work at GWE. You will hear about the experiences of current employees and how work opportunities and arrangements allow them to manage a work life balance they could not achieve elsewhere.
Visually
Our branding didn’t need a complete overhaul by any means, but after a number of years it definitely needed a good refresh. We set out to enhance the look of the site both aesthetically and to improve usability.
So, how did we accomplish this?
Selected new fonts and enhanced the colour palette to give ourselves more versatility.
Added background video to the headers of each page to enhance interest and engagement, as well as tell the story of our culture, services, capabilities and outline career opportunities within the organisation,
We have continued to use our unique blue, and washed many of our videos and images with it, creating overall brand consistency and a more unified look,
Added more images throughout the site to better showcase our work and our team to give visitors a glimpse of who GWE is for those clients that haven’t yet met us in person.
We focused our attention on delivering simple navigation – providing various ways to get to our pages, and better align with increased mobile use.
Functionally
As we worked through the site content and design, we also identified ways we could enhance the site’s functionality to improve usability and add interest.
So, how did we accomplish this?
Our new website is now built on a more user-friendly platform which means that in the future we can continue to add content more easily.
Integrated video and motion including hover effects on page elements,
Implemented clean, SEO-friendly code with faster load times which is extremely important with all the large imagery we are using for high-resolution screens.
Feedback
We hope you’ve had a chance to browse around a bit and enjoyed the new experience.
Our new site is the culmination of many months of work, not only in the planning but also in the copywriting and site build. We’re delighted with it, and we’re receiving lots of positive feedback. The team at J&M were patient with us but questioned our thinking and delivered a great site that ticked all our requirements.
It’s just one small part of our growth plans over the next 5 years, but it represents everything we want to do and achieve.
Do let us know what you think – after all, it’s all about you. Do you like it? Or, how can we make it better? We always want to know how we can improve.