JP Licks has been one of THE main destinations for ice cream fanatics for nearly
30 years. From its birth in 1981 in the Jamaica Plain ("J.P.") section of Boston
to its 8 current locations (4 in Boston and 4 in neighboring towns) JP Licks has
won accolades and awards for their amazing, creative ice cream flavors that rotate
on a monthly basis. They needed a website that would showcase these flavors each
month, announce the many contests and events that they hold and sponsor for charities
and community organizations, and to educate their consumers that they do MORE than
just ice-cream. In recent years they have expanded their offerings into fresh roasted
organic and Free Trade Certified coffees (roasted at their J.P. "Mothership" location),
cakes and pies, catering and breakfast catering, and they needed a website that
would allow online orders, that they could easily update themselves, was flexible
enough to accommodate ever-changing products, and represented the passion, creativity
and FUN that JP Licks is.
Most websites consist of one "Home" page upon which all other "Secondary" pages
are based upon visually. It was identified early on in meetings between SilverSwitch
and JP Licks that the DESIGN and aesthetics of this website would be an extremely
important focus of the project, and the site boasts 8 separate landing pages that
are visually distinct from each other. From the time when the first location in
1981 employed mostly Massachusetts College of Art students to the funky décor of
their current locations and the rotating artwork on display through their "Visiting
Artists" program in these various destinations, ART is highly valued and supported
by JP Licks. Ice Cream is also a FUN experience, one that "connects you to some
of the fondest memories of your childhood . . . the love you received from your
parents and the happiness of times spent with family and friends" (in the words
of owner and founder Vince Petryk). A number of creative and interactive features
went into the building of the site, including the "beef chart" concept created for
their "Locations" page and many rollovers throughout the website, including their
cow logo ("Clementine") whose eye "blinks" as you rollover it while navigating through
the site.
Though the site is "design heavy", a balance must always be struck between "Form
and Function", "Creativity and Usability". It is not enough for a site to look great
– it also has to be easy to navigate for site visitors, allowing them to quickly
find the information that they are looking for. SilverSwitch worked very closely
with JP Licks on the Information Architecture of the site and followed industry
"Best Practices" to make the site Search Engine friendly.
Apart from the obvious "marketing side" of this website, it also serves as the central
means of communication between JP Licks and their customers, communities, staff
and future employees. It allows customers to pre-order and purchase cakes, pies
and catering online, as well as various retail items. The site also features a number
of administrative features in the "back end" for JP Licks staff, including database
applications to track orders, customer comments and job applicants, as well as content
management tools that allow JP Licks staff to easily update the site (changing text,
uploading pictures, imbedding links and pdf’s, etc) themselves with an extremely
user friendly Content Management System (CMS).