Shopping.com came to us a while ago wanting a big, fun corporate blog. We proved that the idea of “fun” and “corporate” could co-exist when we worked with Southwest last year. I can say however, it takes a lot of creative energy from both us and the client to keep the spirit light and the executives happy. Luckily, Shopping.com proved to be another great company to bring into the blogosphere (WhatsInStoreBlog.com).

We are always working to be a creative shop that insists on a good concept before design begins. In this case the challenge lies in finding a visual look for a blog that could potentially talk about 100,000 different products. The concept that emerged was a 25 color palette and a huge mosaic representing every product Shopping.com offers. Obviously, this is a pretty big chore but to the team’s credit, it looks great. Special thanks to Jeff for drawing hundreds of products by hand.

Once the concept is in place and the client is happy (Shopping.com was happy after round 1, thanks guys!), we start designing the function of the blog. Its amazing how simple it is to make good design decisions when the concept is solid. In this case our major goals were a tag cloud that actually looked well designed, and a special Q&A blog post. This is where our integration with the front-end architects is crucial. We are always willing to ask and they are always happy to work with us to find a solution that is up to standards and well designed.

In the end, the blog went live with a few days to spare and looked just like the comp the client loved. Well done to everyone involved. We are getting this blog thing down to an art. Next big chore: re-doing our own blog.