Case Study – Blogtrottr

Posted by Jay on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 10:16 am

Jigowatt were approached by Sam Bryan to design an identity and build a web template for a web application he had developed; Blogtrottr. Blogtrottr is a clever application which allows you to subscribe to any RSS feed and have updates delivered to your inbox, negating the requirement for a separate piece of software/plugin to stay updated. This also makes it easier to keep your finger on the pulse while you’re on the go via mobile devices.

As always the first part of this project was to create the identity. Sam requested that the logo incorporate the recognisable RSS icon in a subtle way to hint at the purpose of the app.

The name Blogtrottr is obviously a pun on the word ‘bogtrotter’ and after a little research we discovered that bogtrotting is an outdoor activity similar to orienteering. This tied in a little with the app as it’s all about being on the go and discovery so we decided to base one of our concepts around this idea.

But what the name immediately reminded me of was a famous chapter from the Roald Dahl book ‘Matilda’ in which Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to eat an entire chocolate cake by the Trunchbull after being caught stealing a slice at lunch time. A proposed tagline seemed to fit in with this concept too: “Delicious news, fed to your inbox”.

Below are the two concepts we created:

Both incorporate the RSS symbol, linking the icon to the app. The logo on the right hints at “bogtrotting” as an activity while the left one is a direct reference to that famous chapter from ‘Matilda’. Besides, everyone loves cake, so anyone in the dark about the reference will hopefully enjoy the icon!

As a fellow fan, Sam loved the cake concept and after reading the strapline the logo was chosen. The next step was to redesign the web site. Below is a screenshot of how the site looked originally:

It’s always exciting to start the design process with a blank canvas, Sam contacted us originally after enjoying our other web design work, in particular the modern, web 2.0 styles and so gave us free reign with the design.

We felt that the site design should lend itself to the logo so we created some cakey, chocolatey textures and authored some introductory content.

I absolutely love it – just the right amount of cakeyness!
Sam Bryan – Blogtrottr

With the concept agreed we built the template using the Blueprint grid system, valid xhtml and css. We also featured a custom font using the css3 property @font-face which enhances the brand as we were able to use the same font for the headings as was used in the logo itself.

Below is the final template:

The new design will be going live in the next few weeks.

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• Case Study – Khodtech brand
• Case Study – StickaStyle
• Case Study – SPI
• Case Study – Why Arai
• Case Study – Bike Stop

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 10:16 am and is filed under Case Studies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.