Beanstock's tag line, Coffee is Personal, is reflected not only through its carefully selected and roasted blends, but in the e-commerce web site that Polar Design developed. Its unique personalized coffee bags allow shoppers to order coffee blends with the names of their friends, companies, or family on the bag ? a very cool gift for hard core coffee lovers. The e-commerce site developed for Beanstock not only permits the easy ordering and fulfillment of personalized bags, but also communicates the effect with an interactive Flash presentation on the home page that allows visitors to actually rename a bag right on the web site.

A winner of the "Best restaurant web site 2009" in a European business magazine, this state of the art web site is a visual feast on par with the delectable steak and whiskey offerings available in the Upside Down restaurant. Advanced SEO techniques, a unique design, custom photography, an interactive Flash tour of the restaurant, and a Flash menu are among the features that have drawn thousands of visitors into the web site experience and, eventually, into the restaurant itself. Our social media campaign has resulted in thousands of monthly visitors from Facebook, Twitter, newsletters and organic SEO.

A complete overhaul of this online tea retailer, including a new brand, look and e-commerce site, led to a doubling in conversion from 2% to 4%. We followed this with a highly cost effective online marketing program that included SEO, link building and social media marketing that has driven new customers at an increasing rate from the online tea community.

In early 2005 Roger Rulewich and the Golf Group approached Polar Design to develop its first website with the intention of properly representing the group in an innovative way. Polar conducted its branding process with the Group and identified unique characteristics of the firm’s culture, history, services and its principals. These provided ample fodder for lively brainstorming that results the current web site. Key design elements include gentle curves, suggestive of a golf course, along with a creatively conceived, subtle Flash banner whereby an architect’s sketch is drawn and gradually morphs into an actual course. The site thus communicates the Group’s special combination of personalized client attention, classical style and comprehensive services (i.e., design to construction).

HomeBin approached Polar Design to re-design its database of homes that integrates with the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), create a fresh new look to the site and improve the flow of leads by developing the web site’s search engine position and traffic. HomeBin’s features and professionally designed website help cater to newly demanding buyers by making the experience more fruitful. Powerful search tools and integration with the MLS allow prospective buyers to start their home search at HomeBin’s website instead of its competitors thus establishing the relationships that routinely develops into a client relationship. With an easy to use interface, the site allows visitors to research without initially contacting an agent or broker giving them a sense of independence. To further the HomeBin experience, an agent or broker is just a click away to help assist buyers and sellers. HomeBin’s mortgage calculator, $500 “for sale by owner” program, and the sites ability to attract large numbers of buyers are important attractions for cost-conscious sellers.

Polar Design partnered with The Segal Company (www.segalco.com), a leader in HR and benefits consulting for multi-employer benefit funds, public sector entities and corporations. This collaboration offers a web site with easy to use and informative user interfaces, built upon a rapid application development framework. Using such a framework allowed Polar to build this complex site in less time and with fewer bugs as compared to custom development, while also ensuring the site is robust enough to serve the Laborers’ thousands of members. Polar produced this cutting edge site despite working with batch file transfers from an AS/400 based solution, demonstrating that integration and legacy systems do not have to constrain design and usability. Unique interface innovations include a members’ benefit dashboard, and Flash interfaces that display contribution and other data to a diverse demographic with easy to understand, animated graphics. The website’s ability to address members’ questions 24 hours per day, online, has helped reduce call center traffic and certain support costs and increased member awareness and satisfaction.

With a firm, like O’Brien & Levine, that operates in a commodity service industry, differentiation became the main focus rebranding and web site design. Polar Design revamped O’Brien & Levine’s web presence through branding, design, and technology overhaul. Polar developed a new set of brand guidelines to reflect the firm’s reputation and status by encompassing a new look and feel. Polar took O&L;’s unique ability to bridge technology and customer service by improving their user interface and navigational structure allowing web visitors easy access to information. To strengthen O&L;’s client relationship Polar set up an extranet that delivers timely, useful information ranging from forms and knowledgebase articles to calendars.