Portfolio

Since it's launch in 2000, 7x7 has established itself as San Francisco's premiere lifestyle magazine, highlighting the best the city has to offer for food, nightlight, arts, fashion and design. While 7x7's print magazine has built a strong readership, featuring profiles of local movers and shakers and mapping out San Francisco's ever changing social scene, publisher Hartle Media wanted transform their website into a vibrant online community. Already being online, 7x7 approached Raincity Studios to bring their website to life by converting their existing content management system to drupal and give their website editors full control over the online publishing workflow.   After seeing our previous work with fellow McEvoy Group publisher, Spin Magazine, the good folks at 7x7 were confident that the Raincity Studios team would be able to deliver the top-notch work they expected.

In designing the site, careful consideration was taken to maintain the branding and identity 7x7 had already established. Raincity Studios theme designers worked closely with the 7x7 graphic design team to ensure the website had the same look and feel they had already achieved without sacrificing any site usability. Moving from an existing cms also required porting over all existing content from the previous site and ensuring it functioned properly in its new environment. Scripts were implemented involving the parsing of xml files to import data into the new website and facilitate a smooth and painless transition.

Building the 7x7.com site also required creating 5 custom drupal modules to extend the site's functionality and enhance the user experience. These custom modules offered increased ability to determine how and where site content will appear, giving site editors complete control over the publishing process. These custom modules included a featured posting rotator that allows chosen stories to be featured on main pages and assist visitors in discovering relevant site content.   And to cater to the needs of an established media outlet, the Raincity Studios development team integrated an overlay and banner advertising management system to give editors robust control over site advertising and deliver ads to users in a elegant manner.

Along the way, every effort was also made to create a rich media experience for visitors to the site. This included the creation of photo galleries that automatically generate preset thumbnails and full size overlay images as well as a custom integration with Brightcove's video service tgiving site editors the ability to complement print articles with video content. These enhanced media experiences combined with a powerful categorization system make it not only more enjoyable to browse the site, but also makes finding relevant information easy. Now, much more than just a magazine, this website transformed 7x7 into an online community with open lines of communication where readers can giver their feedback and share information about upcoming events in their city.

In the end, the Raincity Studios team was able to help 7x7 magazine engage its readers online and create an invaluable resource for locals looking to explore and learn more about San Francisco. In partnering with Raincity Studios and adopting drupal as its content management system, 7x7.com is an excellent example of how a magazine can thrive online.