Kobayashi Online wins WMA WebAward for Word11.com

The Web Marketing Association announced the winners of its coveted WebAwards on Thursday with Kobayashi Online being recognized for Outstanding Achievement in Web Development for Word11.com, the website for Toronto’s first 24-hour blogging festival.

The WMA also awarded OPTIMUS | SBR and Grace Marketing the Consulting Standard of Excellence for the OPTIMUS | SBR Corporate Website, which Kobayashi Online helped develop.

The WebAwards have been around since 1997, and are judged by a team of independent Internet professionals representing various relevant fields including media, advertising executives, site designers, creative directors, corporate marketing executives, content providers and webmasters.

According to the scores given to Word11.com, the site ranked well ahead of other sites based on design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, and copywriting.

The WordPress theme we developed for Word11 includes a menu for the whole site and four custom sidebars. The theme header features two different designs with day and night colors, which change when the user updates the browser or goes to a different page.

To enable compelling header fonts, we incorporated a JavaScript-based typographic engine that allowed us to use the Yanone Kaffeesatz font available through the Google Font API.

We also put considerable work into designing a colourful logo that helped set the tone for the website, and communicate that Word11 is a significant, modern, forward-looking event.

One judge commented: “”The color palette stood out to me on this website. I enjoyed the color choices and the grey-style combination. The inclusion of share features and displaying new media platforms emphasizes knowledge the entity has in conducting this type of event.”

Word11.com lets visitors share its content on more than 300 social networks and aggregators using the”AddThis” social bookmarking plugin.

One of the other great things about Word11.com is that it lets site administrators make updates and change content easily. All the content of Word11.com, including its sidebars and header, can be easily edited using the WordPress dashboard without HTML or programming knowledge.

Kobayashi Online also helped create the award winning website optimussbr.com, which provides both existing and prospective clients with a central place for information regarding the firm and its services. For more information on the Optimus | SBR website, check out the news release on the Optimus | SBR Insights blog.

We’d like to thank the WEA for the recognition, and congratulate all the other WebAward nominees and winners who continue to expand the horizons of Web design.