Off the Road - your guide to New Mexico’s MainStreets
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
We’re very happy to announce the launch of our latest site for the New Mexico Economic Development Department (EDD), and it’s something of a departure for us.
Off the Road is “a transparently opinionated website focusing on shopping and dining in the downtowns of all 21 New Mexico MainStreet communities. Here, we show you where to find bargain collectables, a cute pair of shoes, or a piping-hot plate of green chile enchiladas - all from locally owned businesses found on main streets, town squares, and plazas across New Mexico.”
Part guide, part travelogue, the funky nature of the site’s content called for a more freewheeling design than the more strictly professional projects we’d previously worked on for the EDD - especially as the target audience were adventurous souls with a taste for the local and quirky who like to steer clear of big box stores and chain restaurants.
In conjunction with our friend Dana Doyle of elemental studio, we devised a clear and usable structure for the site then went to town on the visual design, to create a funky Route 66 feel, complete with a retro slideshow for each of the regions.
To add a bit of interactive fun (and possibly be of some help) the site also includes a quiz to point visitors to the right part of the state, based on their interests and personality.
And to encourage contributions, visitors can leave their own travel tips and suggestions on each of the regions.
‘The site manages to be a great combination of informative, attractive, entertaining and easy to use,’ said Tricia Ware, Marketing Writer at the EDD. ‘We’re very happy with the way it turned out, and David and Dana were full of ideas and suggestions on how to turn our requirements into the finished product.’
Updates:
The site has enjoyed a great deal of success. Here are the details:
Client: New Mexico State Economic Development Department
Role: Site planning, site construction. (site design in conjuction with elemental studio)
Features:
- Rich visual design
- Quiz functionality
- Visitor comments functionality
- Flash slideshows
- Built in XHTML/CSS - no tables were harmed in the making of this site
- Back-end content management system for site updating by client
Site address: http://www.offtheroadnm.com