T3d has a long history of working with the MG Car Club and we were extraordinarily pleased when they approached us to do a website for the MGLive! Event.

Doodle on a napkin:

We started the process by sitting down with the jolly bunch at the MGCC HQ and finding out what they wanted from the site. With their long history it was important that we kept the MGCC ethos inline with the new site, while also fulfilling their requirements to make MGLive.co.uk stand out, grabbed people’s attention and marketed the event well.

After several cups of tea and some very fancy biscuits, we took away all their ideas and started to draw up some initial design concepts and start work on the basic information architecture. We also looked at how other similar events had set up their sites and what we could do to make sure that MGCC’s stood out from the crowd.

We met them again a week later, not only to sample more of the good biscuits, but also to take them through the concepts and have a more in-depth chat. We tossed some thoughts on functionality back and forth, they gave us some idea of how they wanted people to use the site and we discussed what they wanted people to do once they had been there (i.e. buy tickets to the event).

The architect’s plans:

With all the info we had researched and discussed with MGCC we went away and brainstormed some ways of making the site amazing. One of the things MGCC had mentioned was that they had wanted to create posters for the event which could be displayed across the country. As this has always been the traditional way to advertise events, and with MG being an iconic classic within the car industry, we thought a poster would be a good way to try out some themes and ideas. We took this back to MGCC and they said, “Make it happen!”.

We went back and busied ourselves with making a website version of the poster. We designed the homepage and various sub-pages as there was going to be quite a variety within the site and it was important that the concepts and themes carried across every section.

We also identified all the technologies that would be required by the site to make it as amazing as MGCC wanted. We liked the idea of this site being fully functional but relatively easy to maintain for the MGCC team, so deciding on what kind of Content Management System to use and how to set it up was important at this stage.

Getting the builders in:

With the final sign off from MGCC on our plans we knew we could then start developing the site. We had identified the CMS we wanted to use but there were a lot of additions we had to make to ensure it would do everything MGCC required to an impeccable standard.

The site is quite complex and required carefully considered aspects, like a fully functional eCommerce solution, which needs a lot of time and input from our developers to ensure we got exactly the look and feel we were after. “If a jobs worth doing, it’s worth doing well!” as T3d’s dad used to say. So we discussed how they wanted all aspects of their sales section to work and find out exactly how they wanted it implemented, this included bespoke print outs for customers and detailed sales reporting. Back in T3d HQ the development team weaved their black magic and came up with the immaculate goods once again.

Grand Opening:

As the site would be going live before the tickets would be available for sale, it was launched in two phases. Phase one was based on alerting people to the fact that the event was happening, getting them excited about it and creating some media attention. Phase two would be launching the shop section where MGCC are hoping most of their ticket sales for MGLive! would be coming from.

We at T3d, and all the excellent folk at MGCC have considered this a resounding success so far. In fact we’ll let Andy Knott, editor of the MGCC magazine ‘Safety Fast!’, put it in his own words:

“With MGLive! Being our premier event attracting 30,000 people it’s important that we get the marketing literature and website right. Working with a dynamic company like Twenty3design on the MGLive! Project has been a really professional, enjoyable experience.

It’s great having a company involved who are passionate about what they do, understand your needs and have ideas of their own to improve the already great designs.

I can’t recommend the company highly enough and really look forward to working with Twenty3design on other projects.”