TAK get Visit Birmingham job

A press release through from Marketing Birmingham tells us that TAK! have gotten the tender for the new Visit Birmingham website. I wouldn’t normally blog about such things but this is, I feel, pretty interesting.

1) TAK! is a relatively small web design company, not the sort of operation you’d expect a major City project to go to (unless I’m mistaken).

2) TAK!, in my opinion, really understand the internet and should be able to provide all the “Web 2.0” stuff required without bolloxing it up. That MB were able to see this in their application is a credit to them.

3) TAK! come, if you’ll excuse the expression, “from the street” as evidenced by their Stickernation project so understand there’s more to Birmingham than the usual tourist stuff (as important as that is). Whether they can get this through to the content of the site is debatable, but their branding of the site should be interesting.

From the press release (Word doc):

“They are clearly experts in their field and had thought about the long term development of the site, not just a quick fix. They incorporated Web 2.0 technologies in their proposals as it is an important way of facilitating user generated content but did not overload on gimmicks just for the sake of it. They also proposed future extensions of their ideas to really add value and ensure that the website will be flexible enough to keep evolving.”

The Visit Birmingham website was created to encourage people to come to the city, make it easy for them to do so and ensure they make the most of what Birmingham has to offer while they’re here. The new design will aim to place Birmingham at the forefront of digital technology. It will be stylish yet simple and will incorporate a fresh look with an innovative content strategy to engage with, retain and guide users.

Best of luck to them!