Elevated SurfCraft is a board company with a mission to grow surf culture beyond the beach. Whether it’s surf, skate, or snow, all of SurfCraft’s boards have design cues modeled after classic shapes that provide the rider with efficient and dynamical movement across the terrain. Unlike traditional twin tips snowboards, SurfCraft’s directional boards place the rider farther back on the board and perfectly
The Challenge:
Large but Not so in Charge
Elevated SurfCraft came to us seeking a complete overhaul of the company’s existing website. During our initial evaluation and analysis, we quickly recognized that Elevated SurfCraft’s website failed to do its fun and frisky brand justice. And while the site’s look, feel, and general aura were lacking, it was its functionality that was doing the most harm.
The company’s site was providing customers with a poor user experience on mobile thanks to an assortment of overly large photos that made navigation nearly impossible. We knew that success would only come through enhancements to both form and function.
The Solution:
New Like Fresh Powder
Simply put, Elevated SurfCraft’s products are fun. They’re also finely tuned. And we wanted the company’s new website to mimic that joyful marriage of sizzle and substance. The result is an entirely new presence that is playful, engaging, and highlights the products’ most unique attributes with subtle interactive bonus features.
While snowboards are Elevated SurfCraft’s signature line, the company does manufacture and sell surf-style skateboards and surfboards that come in various sizes, designs, and colorways. At the time, those products had yet to be introduced in the online shop, which meant we had to develop design schemes and e-commerce functionality from scratch—all while ensuring the new products’ pages and vibe stayed consistent with those of the snowboards.
Since launch, the new site has catapulted Elevated SurfCraft to an entirely new level. The bug-free webpages, complete with interactivity and a fully responsive experience, have resulted in superior customer interactions.
Between the upbeat copy and the action-oriented photos of the products in use, the new Elevated SurfCraft site perfectly encapsulates the brand’s exuberance in areas where the previous presence fell flat.
The CREATIVE:
The new Elevated SurfCraft website makes shopping for a new snow/surf/skateboard seamless and intuitive. Customers can peruse content on selecting a board based on height and terrain and digitally flip boards around to better appreciate both sides of each board’s striking design.
Website
It was important to us (and to Elevated SurfCraft, for that matter) that the new website be optimized for mobile with fast load times on all devices. We took that to heart by strategically positioning and right-sizing images—the old site’s excessively large photos were a significant contributor to a poor user experience. Additionally, we interspersed light and bright images with bold and brash text treatments and overlays to direct more attention to the company’s innovative product design.
Content and SEO
The outdoorsy types interested in the lines of products Elevated SurfCraft creates are turned off by stale and stilted copy, so we took the approach to meet these consumers at their level. The site’s copy is conversational, yet aspirational. It’s professional, but not pretentious. When ironing out the site’s SEO strategy, we worked closely with Elevated SurfCraft’s team to ensure that any keyword strategies were closely aligned with search terms real customers of theirs might use, like “directional snowboard.”