Like a Virgin
In 1997, we created a corporate identity and business website for Monarch Mortgage Company, Inc. It was a very comprehensive and highly-developed site for its day, including hundreds of pages of articles related to finance, home improvement, and home-related technology.
It also included numerous scripted tools for prospective home buyers, including loan calculators and online loan applications. Though commonplace on modern websites, many of these features were a novelty during those early days on the World Wide Web.
An interesting and highly engaging feature were the 360° virtual tours. Creating these tours required a specialized camera lens that could capture all sides of a room in a single shot and software that could stitch the image together and convert it to a scrolling panorama.
The site also featured a membership area where clients could submit secure forms and download documents. A similarly configured back office was created for in-office and remote file sharing and communications.
Our graphic artist designed all of their business correspondence, including the logo, business cards, postcards and promotional flyers. Our talented media expert created the content for their online and offline newsletters.
Alas, all good things must come to an end. After nearly 15 years in business, the 2006 housing bubble altered the lending landscape and resulted in their merge with another mortgage company, the Atlanta-based 1st Commitment Mortgage. Thankfully, we were asked to create marketing materials and do a website redesign for the new company too.
Monarch Mortgage Company, our first major client, allowed us creative freedom to explore the many technical options that were available at that time.