About the Project

“Your driving companion is waiting to be picked up.”

Shows a video clip of a dog with his ears blowing in the wind from the car window. Almost like he is sitting next to you. This links to the Adoption page. On a mobile device, this video shows up as an image to speed download times for smart phones. I chose this video clip because it conveys companionship. It was also used as the landing page because dog adoption is the number one reason people go to the Humane Society according to their records. It is important to Blue Tiger to consider the audience and priorities when choosing images and words.

Blue Tiger Studio redesigned the Whatcom Humane Society website and published it in Spring of 2018.

What was once a 109 page website without mobile functionality, has now become an eight-page site with a beautiful mobile-friendly appearance. I think the most challenging part was taking all that information and condensing it into bite-sized pieces that still gave their audience the info they needed. I used several techniques, like collapsible accordions, sliders, priority placed buttons, PayPal short-forms, and columns to achieve this result. The people at the Humane Society loved it, and so did the customers. The website also serves as a?wild and domestic animal information resource for the greater Bellingham community. It was important for this group was to convey the beauty and respect for the animals they serve. Blue Tiger chose several emotional statements to get to the heart of adoption, along with photographs that echoed the statements well.

“Help us help them.”

Shows a photo of a one-eyed cat. The link goes to the Support Us page, allowing donors to help pay for surgeries like this for animals in need, and give them a second chance. Throughout the site, there are images from the actual shelter’s programs and volunteers, plus photographs taken locally by Blue Tiger, to show the real Bellingham area. This is the kind of specialized treatment that our clients get from Blue Tiger Studio. We dont just grab generic images from the web, we make it unique and real. Non-profits like Whatcom Humane Society get to enjoy a 30% discount on website services from Blue Tiger Studio, because we care about the important work they are doing. One of the best parts of this website is the user-friendly dashboard behind the scenes. WordPress sites were originally made for the non-coder, but not all themes are really that intuitive. We used a CMS called Divi to build the site with because it is so user-friendly. Then trained the volunteer coordinator at Whatcom Humane on how to use it herself. So that the non-profit could do its own posts and updates without having to spend more money on outside contract work – keeping the money for their mission where it should be going. Working on this project was great because of all the animals! I learned so much about the natural world that lives right in my backyard. Check out the Whatcom Humane Society website?to view the full scope of the project.