GOLDEN STATE OF MIND
PACSUN, 2012Project Scope:
User Experience Design
Responsive Website Design & Dev
Custom CMS Application
I actually had the opportunity to work with Pacsun twice, first time in 2000, when we redesigned their online store which doubled sales within 90 days. In 2012, they approached us again to help launch their new Golden State of Mind brand campaign.
At the time Pacsun had a very active social community with well over a million followers on Facebook. However, they found social media to be too limiting as the sole online source of expressing the visual nature of their new brand. Thus, they asked us to assist them in creating a cross-device platform to serve as a content hub for their Golden State of Mind brand initiative. This site would allow them to showcase their seasonal styles in a bold way while aggregating content from all their social channels. The challenge was that we needed a solution that was uniquely creative, yet could be updated to completely change the imagery and tone every month. To achieve this, we built a robust CMS that not only managed and showcased the volume of content coming from PacSun and its bloggers, but also allowed the internal creative team to completely re-skin this richly interactive HTML5 site with no coding required.
Unlike today, where a number responsive frameworks are readily available. In early 2012 we had to build our own framework to deliver optimized experiences via the browser on the computer, tablet and smartphones.
The site received a great deal of industry praise for its combination of beautiful design, content and elegant experience delivered through new HTML5 techniques. More importantly, at Pacsun’s company shareholders meeting, they applauded the site’s success and stressed the importance it played in the company’s future.
