Dynamic Gear and “The Mercantile”
In February 2021, Dynamic Gear LLC, a small business that is part of the incubator in “The Mercantile” in the Titusville, Pennsylvania engaged Silphium Design LLC to produce an eCommerce website. The business incubator provides a place for businesses just starting out to establish and grow, hopefully then being able to find a more permanent home in Titusville or the surrounding area. Each of the businesses has a location within a small mall setting complete with an eating area. Dynamic Gear is located in the middle of the “strip” across from Coffee Days coffee shop.
Dynamic Gear LLC reaches out to Silphium Design LLC
Dynamic Gear LLC, a seller of sporting goods and other related products, is looking to expand beyond the confines of the incubator by branching out into eCommerce by shipping goods from the store, by affiliate marketing and possibility wholesaling. Upon getting the contract for the website, Silphium Design looked at ways to highlight the business using Dynamic Gear’s existing logo and the vast outdoors present around Titusville. Fortunately the colors of the logo matched the overall schema of presenting the outdoors theme.
The Logo of Dynamic Gear LLC
Dynamic Gear’s logo, shown above, has a mixture of black, green, and gray, with black being the primary color or in the case of black a non-color. The black color of the logo implies the sophisticated experience you get while shopping at the store, both in person and online. The “lined” lettering is reminiscent of the IBM logo, which brings to mind technology and the cutting edge. The black color also brings to mind the color of oil, the “Oil Region,” and the uniqueness of the area. Green is a color that brings to mind the idea of nature and the environment. A blog post discussing the color green is located on the Silphium Design Blog. Gray is a neutral color that helps to dampened the strong effect of the black lettering. The logo for the business features prominently at the top of the header.
Overall Site Structure
The overall site colors and positioning follow those found in the logo. The black (#000000) heading located at the top of the website is positioned the same as the logo. In between is the green (#066531) used as an accent for buttons and calls to action (CTA). The footer is gray (#353535) and is located at the bottom of the website, the same position as the logo. White (#ffffff) space is used in the website background and for lettering represents the logo white space.
The Banner Image
The Banner image on the website is of Oil Creek within Oil Creek State Park and downstream of Titusville. The darkness of the creek and the green of the woods brings together the overall theme of the store with the dark lettering and the green “shop now” buttons. Green buttons have been shown to be more effective than even red buttons in increasing sales.
Other Images
The lower image above the footer is of the Oil Creek Bike Trail and shows the ample recreation opportunities in the Titusville region and the fun you will have purchasing goods at Dynamic Gear that can be used in them.
Other Design Aspects
Like all sites completed by Silphium Design LLC, the Dynamic Gear site is accessible as much as possible to web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 AA). When designing the color scheme, colors were used to give a contrast of at least 7:1, which conforms further to the AAA guideline for both small and large text. The text color of this blog post is XXX, which softer on the eyes than pure black, but still maintains a contrast above 7:1. Heading structure is observed on all pages to be navigable by tabbing. All images have alternative text that can be read by screen readers, excepting those that are used for accents or backgrounds.