New Giraffe site causes a buzz
…written by Alex and has 12 comments so far
Some of you may have noticed that we launched the brand new site for Giraffe last week, but it’s never ‘truly’ launched until it’s been blogged about! So consider it official and stuff from this point onwards. Whoop whoop etc.
What they said…
“I can honestly say I have not enjoyed working with an agency as much as I have with Engage Interactive. Their approach, strategy and development of our new website has been fantastic. We all absolutely love the new website and are proud to have received so many compliments both from customers and other business leaders who are all really impressed with it.”
Juliette Joffe, Founder & Director, Giraffe
Now we’re pretty proud of this one as it’s the result of a lot of researching, thinking, planning and re-thinking to make sure we got it spot on (who said web design was easy?!) and early signs would indicate it’s paid off, with the launch having created a fair bit of internet buzz already.
Aside from the usual lovingly crafted code and graphics – the site’s also got some neat little touches in there if you take the time to explore a bit – with even more planned in the coming months. Behind the scenes, everything is ticking along nicely on our very own Engage CMS allowing the Giraffe team to completely control pretty much every aspect of the site from menu items though to new openings.
I’ll leave you to explore the site yourselves, though if you’re short on time (which is pretty much everyone at this time of year) when not let me point you in the direction of some of our favourite bits…
Hybrid search drop down
Finding your nearest restaurant has never been so easy (or accurate!) with our completely bespoke location finder. Built using jQuery and a lot of clever stuff, it allows visitors to simply choose a restaurant from a dropdown OR should you not have a clue where you are you can type in any street address, place name or even a landmark such as ‘Harrods’ or ‘Big Ben’ to find your closest location. This is especially useful in London where many Giraffe visitors are tourists or day trippers who navigate simply via attractions rather than postcodes or areas.
Fully interactive menus
Strangely, many restaurant websites don’t really make a feature of the actual food and it’s hard enough for even the most technical of us to start salivating over PDF menu downloads. So, determined to give your taste buds a little treat we developed fully interactive menus which are completely browsable and come complete with an array of beautifully shot food images and featured dishes. You can see them for yourself by clicking here – but be warned – you’re going to get hungry!
…and then there’s still the shop, contact form, hug club and the homepage social media to mention!
We really hope you like browsing the site as much as we enjoyed building it. If you have any thoughts, comments, ridiculous Giraffe related puns or just suggestions – why not share them with us in the comments below? Thanks!
Neil Says:
I will ‘stick my neck out’ and say this is a mighty fine website
December 16th, 2009 at 3:32 pmSomeone else Says:
These days its such a ‘tall order’ to produce such a top site.
December 16th, 2009 at 3:37 pmWell done !
Jude Says:
I like it! Pretty and fun and a bit wacky like its creators x
December 16th, 2009 at 3:40 pmAlex Says:
Thanks guys – Dreadful puns though!
I’m sure they won’t be the last…
December 16th, 2009 at 5:01 pmNeil Says:
You’re ‘having a giraffe’ right – there are plenty more to come ! (not)
December 17th, 2009 at 5:31 pmDave Ellis Says:
Usual high standard guys – a really tidy site, always nice to see your work!
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:55 pmchris johns Says:
The assertion that the hybrid search is new is not entirely correct – Squaremeal, La Tasca, Slug and Lettuce and ha ha websites all have it to one degree or another..
January 7th, 2010 at 4:36 pmWill Says:
Hey Chris, thanks for the feedback. I have to disagree though.
Having a quick glance through those websites you mentioned, like you say they all have the same functionality to some degree, but they are far more traditional in their implementation.
For example, on squaremeal you have to choose from several options before searching. Ha Ha just has a drop down and on the others – while the search capabilities are more comprehensive – they fall down on landmarks and they still need the separate lists to back them up.
Which is why we consider the Giraffe search pretty original. All in one box you can search the post code, town, city or even a landmark like stone henge. Failing that there it is also a list of all the restaurants below.
So yes, while all the functionality already exists, it’s the implementation which is new and as far as I know, there isn’t anything else out there that does it better.
January 7th, 2010 at 4:58 pmchris johns Says:
Hi
You’re correct in what you say but they don’t ‘fall down’ at landmarks – we just monitored the analytics and it was clear that people were searching for train/tube stations – so we added that functionality only, the traffic for landmarks just wasn’t significant but if it were it would be simple to include as the data is available as part of the postcode database . You’re right about ha ha – they’ve only a small number of venues so it wasn’t deemed necessary for that site.
Interestingly for Squaremeal it was a conscious decision to separate landmarks from the main search criteria.
Swings and roundabouts perhaps
January 7th, 2010 at 5:32 pmWill Says:
I personally prefer the swings, roundabouts make me feel ill.
January 8th, 2010 at 9:29 amSean Says:
Fantastic site – an inspiration really… a beautiful ‘elastic’ design… elastic like the giraffe’s blood vessels… you know, so they don’t faint when they bend over to drink… what do you mean ‘stretching’ a pun beyond its limits? sigh…
February 24th, 2010 at 2:11 pm