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Service: Web + App Development

The Well

Services Deliverables
  • Brochure
  • Website
  • Brand Guide Extension
  • Photography Art Direction
  • Video Production

A spirited environment to live, work, shop, and play

The Well is an innovative mixed-use property development in Toronto’s vibrant King West area where visitors and residents can eat, shop, work, live, and play. To introduce this multimillion-dollar endeavour to the public and generate buzz during a major media push, Forge created various marketing materials and brand assets including brochures with custom photography and vibrant layouts showcasing the properties features and the site’s exciting history.

Print collateral to promote offerings and communicate brand values

Moving the brand forward

Expanding upon The Well’s existing brand guidelines created by Bruce Mau Design, additional standards were added by Forge, deepening the brand focus and addressing a broader range of brand application scenarios.

Engaging communities from near and far

A website was created to showcase The Well’s various offerings, and provide an in-depth look at their residences, lifestyle amenities, flexible office spaces, retail locations, and the surrounding neighbourhood. Following an initial discovery phase, wireframes were created to determine an optimal strategy in presenting content and to create a dynamic and user-friendly experience.

Low fidelity wireframing
High fidelity wireframing

Creating a foundation for memorable experiences

With a focus on lifestyle photography, architectural renderings, and data visualization, the website welcomes users with a warm, lively, and inspiring look into The Well’s community-focused philosophy. Optimized for various devices, the website is both accessible and intuitive for a modern audience.

Features

Google Analytics integration
WordPress CMS
Custom theme
CRM integrated forms
Video animation
Custom photography
Amenities maps
Data visualization

Website flexible for regular content updates

Employing motion to amplify the message

To elevate the brand experience at events, our team produced a seamlessly-looping video to be leveraged in various presentation and promotional scenarios, providing The Well with a versatile and powerful marketing tool.

  • 22K daily guests
  • 1.7K premium residential units
  • 320K square feet of retail and food service
  • 1.2M square feet of office space

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DesignThinkers 2024

designthinkers.com
Services Deliverables
  • Website

Bringing together a community of creatives

DesignThinkers is Canada’s largest design conference, organized by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD). Offering in-person and virtual experiences, DesignThinkers hosts annual conferences in Toronto and Vancouver, bringing together creatives and designers nationwide.

Features

WordPress CMS
Custom theme
Events calendar integration
Pheedloop registration
Custom animations
Google analytics

Website based on Whitman Emorson’s branding

Adapting a dynamic aesthetic to the digital space

Each year features a theme focusing on industry trends and opportunities, with this year’s titled ‘Into The Rabbit Hole’. Envisioned by Whitman Emorson, our design partner—the concept is supported by various collage and optical illusion graphic elements, reinforcing the idea of a dreamlike, unpredictable, and unexpected world of discovery.

Graphic elements supporting the ‘Into The Rabbit Hole’ theme

Creating a frictionless user experience

Through user testing and strategic discussion, the overall user experience was enhanced by identifying moments of friction, improving user flow, and increasing registration conversions. By improving the existing UI, optimizing page layout, and creating a stronger focus on speaker content, users can more easily navigate key areas of the website including event schedule, featured speakers, registration, and travel accommodations.

Unique colour palettes are used to differentiate pages for the Vancouver and Toronto events
  • 2.3K delegates attended in 2023
  • 30 editions and counting in 25 years
  • no. 1 graphic design event in Canada
  • 2 cities visited per year

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Metro Supply Chain

metroscg.com
Services Deliverables
  • Website
  • Logo

Revitalizing an innovative supply chain leader

Delivering innovative supply chain solutions and consulting services, Metro Supply Chain has worked with many of the world’s most recognizable brands and organizations. Looking to create a web experience that better aligns with the high-performing solution offerings of both companies, the team worked with Forge to create more robust and engaging websites.

Features

Multilanguage
WordPress
Google Analytics
Custom Form integration

An extensive supply chain expertise

To best understand the family of companies housed under the Metro Supply Chain name, Forge led an extensive discovery research process to define what each entity stands for and aspires to be and how it can best support the customer through revitalized websites. This research resulted in a clear path forward showcasing the company’s deep supply chain expertise, pride in meaningful business relationships and a trusted, people-centric culture.

Easily customizable website, with effortless ease of use

The website uses a modular build method with reusable content blocks that can be placed in various layouts when creating new pages. Dynamic videos and subtle page load animations are used throughout the website, creating an inviting space for visitors to learn more about Metro Supply Chain’s story and services. Clean, easy-to-read typefaces ensure content is accessible with proper colour contrast ratios.

Comprehensive sitemap to clearly organize the vast content from their many divisions
Content blocks to allow for a flexible expansion of sections

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Dementia In New Light

dementiainnewlight.com
Services Deliverables
  • Logo
  • Website
  • Illustration
  • Social Media
  • Lesson Development

Shedding light into the world of dementia

Dementia in New Light is a digital learning experience that builds upon the research-driven production, Cracked: New Light on Dementia. By following individuals with dementia and their families, it aims to challenge the stigma around dementia and its care. Forge collaborated with a diverse team of researchers and artists and applied co-design methodologies to create an accessible educational experience, fostering a reimagining of dementia and improved support for those impacted.

Features

Headless CMS
React framework
WebGL 3D render with custom shaders
User account portal
Analytics

Emotive narratives, challenging stigma

In our initial discovery phase, we met with the project stakeholders, care providers and individuals affected by dementia to understand how to spread awareness and educate people better about dementia and its effects. We listened to each individual’s story about their lived experiences, engaged in co-design discussions to shape our digital learning outcome and fostered an open, inclusive forum for collaboration. This discovery process uncovered invaluable information from diverse perspectives to enrich the outcome of our digital learning experience.

Two people sitting in a boardroom.
A group of people discussion research, while looking a table.
Snapshots from our discovery and research synthesis process

An engaging and informative experience

Our core objective was to enable learners to explore a wide range of topics related to dementia care while providing them with insights into the daily lives of persons living with dementia and their families, fostering empathy and understanding throughout their journey. To ensure an intuitive user journey, we developed detailed site architecture and wireframes, meticulously planning how learners would navigate the content.

An image showing the site architecture with information hierarchy
A circle diagram that shows the relationship between various topics
Detailed sitemap for a complex website and a small sample from our extensive discovery
wireframe image of the login screen
a sketch exploring the theme of murmuration, or clusters of meaning
wireframe showing the idea behind the unique navigation
Wireframes to start defining the experience

Inspiring others to share their stories

The experience presents content in a number of ways and invites the learner to reflect on what they’ve seen and challenge their perceptions. Forge built a custom application backed by a headless CMS that allows the client to update content as needed.

A close up of one of the topics in focus. The topic is shown as a crystal-like gem floating in space
Another close up of one of the topics in focus. The topic is shown as a crystal-like gem floating in space
Topics browser which acts as the main navigation
The stigma topic expanded, to show the sub topics. The topics are shown as crystal-like gems floating in space
The Possibilities topic expanded, to show the sub topics. The topics are shown as crystal-like gems floating in space

Shifting perspective through interactive storytelling

Learners are immersed through dynamic audio and visual learning moments while incorporating scenes from the original production. Learners can explore various topics surrounding dementia care and see things from the perspective of the person living with dementia and their families.

Illustration of a radio
Illustration of open eyes with eyebrows
Illustration of a bike wheel
Custom illustrations to help tell the stories
A desktop screen that shows what the video player looks like
Learning modules to educate users about dementia
An image gallery is shown in one of the subtopics
A handwritten quote in one of the subtopics

Promoting engagement through tracked user progress

Learners have the ability to create personal accounts where engagement can be tracked and referenced throughout the experience, allowing them to take in content at their own pace and feel a sense of progress. Content can also be easily saved and referenced at any time.

A screen showing that the Stigma topic is half completed.
A screen showing learning modules the user has saved to their profile
A screen showing the relationship topic with its sub topics and indicators to show which sections have been completed.
A playful display to keep track of your progress within the lesson plans
A desktop view of the Relationships topic, showing the sub topics and completion status of each topic.
  • 597K of people are living with dementia in Canada as of 2020
  • 61.8% of those living with dementia are women
Forge is a ‘dream team’! They developed an award-winning, multi-media digital learning experience about dementia-related stigma that deepens learners’ engagement. Despite the ever increasing complexities of its design and build, their team never disappointed – they model the very best of efficiency, ingenuity, and participatory design.
Pia Kontos, PhD, Senior Scientist, Professor

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DesignThinkers 2023

designthinkers.com
Services Deliverables
  • Website

Developing a seamless digital conference experience

DesignThinkers is Canada’s largest design conference, organized by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD). Offering in-person and virtual experiences, DesignThinkers hosts annual conferences in Toronto and Vancouver, bringing together creatives and designers nationwide.

Features

WordPress
Custom theme
Schedule creation
Custom animations

Website based on Sid Lee’s branding

Exploring an open-source design approach

Each year features a theme focusing on industry trends and opportunities, with this year’s titled ‘Question Tomorrow’. Envisioned by Sid Lee, our design partner, all elements are largely open-source, free assets, and purposefully selected to support the direction of the conference. Working closely with Sid Lee and RGD, the development team at Forge brought the digital experience to life by implementing a refreshed theme into the website.

Open-source illustrations

Future-proofing the codebase for years to come

We undertook a thorough analysis and modernization effort to update the legacy codebase to meet the latest web standards, guaranteeing the website would continue functioning for years. This optimization effort increased the longevity of the website’s codebase, ensuring that it can continue to adapt to changing business needs and technical environments.

One website, two cities – Vancouver and Toronto

Implementing industry best practices into WordPress

While implementing the refreshed design, the team at Forge improved the semantic code throughout the site by better defining different sections and making the front end more accessible. We enhanced the WordPress administration interface to make it more user-friendly, streamlining the content editing experience and providing greater flexibility to site administrators.

Bold graphics to promote Canada’s largest Design Conference
  • 2.1K delegates attended in 2022
  • 48 speakers from 7 countries
  • 26 editions and counting in 22 years
  • no. 1 graphic design event in Canada
  • 2 cities visited per year

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Drop

joindrop.com
Services Deliverables
  • Website

Personalizing a flexible, mobile rewards platform

Drop, a free mobile rewards program, focuses on providing customers with a personalized and easy-to-use member experience. Drop members can earn and redeem points by shopping via the app, completing surveys and playing games. Looking to refresh their single-page web presence to better position the program, the Drop team worked closely with Forge to bring the website to life across multiple dynamic pages.

Features

WordPress CMS
HubSpot integration
Hot Jar integration
AppsFlyer integration
Google Tag Manager

Consumer-facing (B2C) website

Reinforce brand value propositions

Aligning with the established branding, the team at Forge created a flexible design system that applied to both the consumer-facing and business-facing Drop websites, ensuring a consistent look and feel while targeting different audiences. The fully-responsive experience considered all screen sizes and included high accessibility standards in visual design and code.

Business-facing (B2B) website

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Winterberry Family Medicine

winterberrymedical.ca
Services Deliverables
  • Logo
  • Brand Guide
  • Illustration
  • Social Media
  • Signage
  • Stationery
  • Website
  • Marketing Materials
  • Motion Graphics
  • Placemaking

A fresh take on personal, caring family medicine

Winterberry is a dynamic, family-oriented medical clinic offering a wide variety of services through trusted in-person and virtual consultations. The Winterberry team approached Forge to revitalize and reposition their brand and website. The existing brand did not accurately represent the personalized care provided by the vibrant family practice team.

Logo design inspired by “berries”
An image showing the safe space around the Winterberry logo
Colour palette for Winterberry brand: Teal, light teal, orange, yellow, cherry, lime, blue.
Our brand standards defined everything including use of clear space and a bright colour palette supports the family style medical practice
A letterform of the letter A for the font IBM Plex Sans Condensed.
A letterform of the letter A for the font IBM Plex Sans.
A letterform of the letter A for the font Libre Baskerville in italics.
Clean and modern typography to convey the messages to all audiences

Redefining the healthcare experience

Forge met with Winterberry stakeholders to determine the existing brand’s pain points and developed a strategy to make the most of the reimagined brand. Playful illustration expresses the brand’s personality and allows the clinic to stand out from their competitors.

Custom illustration were created to liven up the brand
A matching icon set supports all brand visuals

Timely information for a thriving social network

Communicating with existing patients through social media allows the Winterberry team to share frequent updates on current and immediate information regarding statistics, scheduling, healthcare tips, and more. A comprehensive social media production guide was created for the internal marketing team to easily create content in a consistent tone and voice.

Social media production guide for use by in-house team
Social media graphics samples

A sense of trust and approachability

Ensuring the brand could be applied to various touchpoints and deliverables was crucial, as well as creating a welcoming environment that evokes the feeling of dependability and trust in all patients.

Window clings announced the new brand to the neighbourhood
ID Badges for their team and stationery including colourful business cards

Shaping the online experience

Content strategy sessions were held with the goal of optimizing information and ensuring users are presented with the most appropriate content with minimal effort. Before establishing a visual language, website architecture was established in order to improve communications and create a frictionless browsing experience.

Sitemap for the new website
Hand sketched wireframes

Modern, progressive patient care

An overhauled website was created that is fully responsive, and ensures accessibility compliance for all user types. The brand’s vibrance is showcased throughout the website experience, representing the best of modern and progressive patient care.

Features

WordPress CMS
User account portal
Online appointment booking
Monthly newsletter
Google analytics
Custom icons

Device agnostic website design and development
  • 400% anticipated growth in patients over next 5 years
  • 10K+ current number of patients
Working with the Forge team quickly became one of the best parts of my week. The entire team made the process incredibly easy, stress-free and to be honest, fun. Their creativity and innovative ideas brought our vision to life in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
Sharon Ricci, Communications Director

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