GoodMaps is a startup, offering innovative AI-driven indoor navigation, powered by LiDAR-generated building models that enables everyone the freedom and autonomy to discover and interact with the world around them.

GoodMaps approached us needing a partner that could offer a structured, proven approach and the insights and talented team to realize a brand, website and dynamic marketing material that matched the promise of their groundbreaking services and app.

, including brand guidelines, and copy that positioned them to their distinct audiences.

, reflecting their newly honed positioning and driving action from venues.

Working with GoodMaps, we sharpened their positioning into a defined audience: high value buyers/venues. The website meets these prospective partners with a brand + content presentation that mirrors their stature, with content and user flows that compels them to “enhance their venues” with GoodMaps.

The finishing touches to this initial phase of our partnership culminated in a video intro reel and marketing collateral for GoodMaps that brought to life the excitement, energy and strength of GoodMaps.

As a startup, GoodMaps had completed much foundational work for their branding - but needed a structured approach and keen insights to hone it into a clear direction and a robust, cohesive toolkit. Through our proven brand strategy process, we provided a clear, focused concept and brand positioning that articulated both the leadership and passion they bring. This foundational work led the way to a brand identity, guidelines, messaging and assets that rallied their internal employees and set a clear path for them to express themselves confidently and honestly in the marketplace.

Born from a thinktank at the American Printing House for the Blind, accessibility is part of GoodMaps’ DNA, so any expression of a true GoodMaps brand must be easy to access, regardless of ability. With this as our north star we created a visual language that prioritized both.

This included selecting a new, easy to read typeface, photography guidelines, variable illustration and iconography styles, and a whole new color palette — built with high contrast colors that would give the brand energy, speak to the tech savvy nature of the product, and pass the most stringent of accessibility tests.

The print and collateral work needed to combine each of these elements and quickly introduce, at-a-glance, what Goodmaps is all about. To that end we looked back and took inspiration from the app itself. By removing the world that exists beyond our mobile devices, and centering the visuals around the path each user follows, we were able to visually demonstrate exactly how GoodMaps will make every space easier to navigate for every person.

As most startups know, building out a website for your brand in a dynamic startup atmosphere can be a challenge! Working closely with an amazing team at GoodMaps, we set out a clear, achievable schedule and executed it: we said where we were going, and we got there on time.

This was achieved through clear, strategically-driven decision making, founded on the brand strategy and positioning work we completed just prior. In close collaboration with GoodMaps, we identified the following priorities:

: “Less is More”, Fewer Pages, Higher Quality, Exquisite Brand Identity

Using our proven Website process, we helped GoodMaps set out positioning-driven, brand-aligned goals, priorities, requirements and “Audience Weighting” for their new website.

From this we worked with GoodMaps to iteratively generate user flows, content strategy and modeling, content itself and progressively detailed wireframes - all checked against our brand work and priorities.

To support the goal of a focused content modeling approach, design started at a component level. Building out a core set of flexible components that would meet the clients content needs but still show off the new brand and give it the love and attention it deserved.

To inject the personality and the ownability that the site needed, we focused our attention on building out a fun set of isolated, branded visuals that could support the storytelling.

Behind the content and brand visuals sits our intuitive content model of pages, content types and components, managed by Wordpress and organized into an intuitive sitemap. By crafting a content strategy, model and management system that is easy to understand and manage, GoodMaps won’t struggle to keep their site up to speed with their own progress.

Each industry and decision maker that GoodMaps serves has specific needs - and we devised user flows that help get those website travelers to their destination as quickly (and delightfully) as possible. We seamlessly integrated HubSpot into Wordpress, providing a low-friction conversion for prospective customers, and a reliable, easy-to-maintain gated content conversion system that will drive leads for GoodMaps.

Accessibility is always a priority for our website builds, and we often advise our clients on best practices, educating them about the different tools a user might require to interact with the site. GoodMaps, though, with an audience that heavily depends on assistive technology, was well aware of this need and requested that we place an especially high priority on optimizing the user experience for all devices and abilities.

In design, we tested every combination of the newly adopted palette to identify the most compliant color combinations. Once we had informed decisions about accessible color usage, we were able to paint the canvas more confidently. Throughout the design process, we utilized WCAG compliance Figma plugins and other accessibility aids to ensure that any decision we made, was not going to be at the expense of the user. Through rigorous and consistent testing in the design process, we were able to hand-off a thoughtfully designed product to development.

Our development team wrote bespoke, semantic markup for as much of the site as possible and vetted the accessibility of any plugins used. We also relied on the web platform for any interactivity needs. And the team at Ablr, the accessibility testing company that GoodMaps hired to assess the new site, helped us identify anything we missed. In their report email, they wrote, "The VIA team did a fantastic job incorporating accessibility into the build."

"The VIA team did a fantastic job incorporating accessibility into the build."


As a small marketing team leader at a startup, VIA has been a dream to work with on a vast array of projects from branding, art direction, redesigning our entire website, copy writing and print design. Our team could not have accomplished our big goals this year without a partner like VIA that is organized, flexible, and professional. They are a great group of creatives with great attitudes!

Branding

Web Design

Accessibility

WordPress

Hubspot

Collateral

GoodMaps

Since the first resident made Treyton Oak Towers their home in 1984, TOT’s (as they call themselves) mission has always been to provide a “complete continuum of care” for a diverse community of seniors and to do so with excellence that is second to none. And that’s exactly what they have done. This hidden gem in the heart of Old Louisville has provided seniors a community in which to live an independent lifestyle as long as possible, and continues to provide a warm and comfortable home as their needs change.

What TOT needed assistance with was communicating their unique values and authentic community to their audience, in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Their messaging and marketing efforts did not reflect the welcoming and personable reality that lies just beyond their front doors.

Together, we helped reimagine and reposition their brand to reflect their true selves and arm them with the refreshed marketing tools they needed to reach prospective residents.

In late 2018, we began the process of re-imagining the Treyton Oak Towers brand. As we do with any client, we start at the foundations of the organization and attempt to understand them deeply. In doing so with TOT, we collaboratively identified the values they are most passionate about, that their community members value the most, and the unique aspects that differentiate them in a crowded market. These were their Unique Value Propositions (UVPs):

A rich, supportive community of residents and staff

When we are dealing with critical subjects such as aging, security, and housing – these values must be real and not aspirational. They are the truth of the brand.

We then detailed “personas” for their prospective audiences. A persona is demographic and psychographic sketches of a prospective resident, the audience they are wishing to attract. This led us to some critical insights that refocused their marketing efforts on seniors who year by year are becoming more and more independent and technically savvy.

With their unique values and our prospective audience in hand, we defined a new brand concept for Treyton Oak Towers:

Treyton Oak Towers and the seniors who reside there are unique and special, and their branding needed to communicate that. They needed lively and original visuals to support their focus on the arts and commitment to cultivating a rich, diverse culture.

Centered around their iconic logo, we elevated their brand by breathing new life into the supporting brand component. We expanded their color palette, assigned them new fonts and typography treatments, crafted custom patterns, and produced unique, memorable, TOT-owned photography. Treyton Oak Towers’ culture is not “stock”, and neither should their photography be.

By channeling the energy that radiates throughout their building, we enlivened their brand with vibrancy, excitement, and a hint of luxury.

Not only did Treyton Oak Towers’ website need a makeover to match their elevated brand, but the overall user experience needed improvement. Websites are one of the greatest sales tools, and theirs had been lacking. We approached the website build with the following goals in mind:

Mobile-first approach – initial research showed that the majority of our demographic was visiting the website from a mobile device

Design must align with the new brand positioning – Vibrant & Luxurious

Visit The Website

While the Treyton Oak Towers website was jam-packed with information, it did not directly support their number one goal: selling apartments to independent seniors. They were not adequately showcasing the amazing apartment homes, amenities, and the rich community that TOT provides, all under one roof. Through our collaborative design and development process, we helped our friends at Treyton Oak Towers redefine the priorities that their website must achieve, and we built them a website that allows them to help prospective residents “see themselves living at TOT." Included in this is a robust apartment listing system, floor plan visualizations, virtual tours using the latest panoramic technology, and a tour scheduling system, all built upon an easy-to-maintain content management with WordPress.

What was once just an informational website is now an accurate representation of the community, luxury, and vibrancy that they provide – and is a living and breathing sales tool that their internal team is able to use and update on their own terms. And to top it off, it’s 100% responsive for all devices and meets the WCAG accessibility standards.

By focusing on the deep, unique truths and the aspirational promise that vibrant, supportive, continuing care provides – we’ve elevated Treyton Oak Towers’ brand to something that is both authentic and incredibly motivating for residents, staff, and the wider community.

Photography

Websites

Art Direction

Treyton Oak Towers

Our highly-experienced development team handles all software development, from websites to apps to systems integrations, using the right platform and language that meets the challenge.

Non-profit Marketing

Backend Development

UX / UI

Platform and CRM Integrations

Illustration

Fund For The Arts

Custom Applications

Louisville Institute Grant Application System

User Experience

Air Pollution Control District 

Custom Dev

Frontend Development

Content Strategy

Ecommerce

Stave & Thief Society

Marketing Campaigns

WARE

Foxhollow Farm 

Auditing & Roadmapping

VIA Studio 

Visit the site

PHP, Javascript & React

Celestial Bodies of the Past Present & Future

see the website

Graphic Design

Louisville Institute

With this bold new vision pointing the way, we worked step by step with Bernheim to craft a new brand that equipped them for this new journey.

Development

Development: Case Studies

01

GoodMaps

02

Treyton Oak Towers

Development: Blog Posts

GoodMaps

Treyton Oak Towers