What happens when you have a five-year-old Web site ready for a facelift and a team of enthusiastic young web designers? You get an “Extreme Makeover – Web Site Edition,” of course!

The board of directors of the nonprofit Maine Lobster Festival knew their organization needed a new Web site — and they wanted a site to match their reputation as an internationally known fun family festival. But, they also knew that big sites involve big budgets, which can prove challenging for a small nonprofit organization. That’s when Rob Landry, owner of Pemaquid Communications, and a group of web design students from the Maine College of Art, stepped in and teamed up to take on the task of an all-out makeover of the website MaineLobsterFestival.com. The site was launched earlier this month to rave reviews.

The idea was to take Web design students who wanted to gain real-life Web design experience and team them up with some of the best Web designers in Maine to show them the ropes. The project, called Extreme Makeover: Web Site Edition, allowed the Festival to get a world-class site at a fraction of the cost, while the students received hand-on experience and excellent tutoring in quality design.

The organization’s official Web site, which receives tens of thousands of visitors each month, features a new, modern design with photos that make you really feel like you’re at the event. The site was designed with mobile devices mind and displays like an attractive, upscale magazine on an iPad and other tablets.

“Pemaquid’s team did a fantastic job with the design,” said Holly Sherburne, lobster festival director and coordinator of the Web site project. “The design team wasn’t afraid to try some innovative and creative design techniques to make sure our site gives a stunning first impression to people who are considering coming to the Festival.”

The site features new pages for each of the festival’s main events and a new photo gallery that allows potential visitors to see what they can expect with a trip to the festival. There is a social media feed that highlights what the festival posts on its Facebook fan page and Twitter feed. Visitors also can shop in the online store for official Maine Lobster Festival posters; tickets and apparel will be available soon.

The 64th annual Maine Lobster Festival takes place Wednesday through Sunday, Aug. 3-7 along the waterfront in Rockland. For more information about the festival, visit MaineLobsterFestival.com or call (800) LOB-CLAW.

For more information about the Maine Lobster Festival “extreme makeover” process, read a post on Pemaquid Crunch, Pemaquid Communication’s blog: http://www.pemaquid.com/blog/2011/05/23/extreme-makeover-web-site-edition-the-maine-lobster-festival/

ABOUT PEMAQUID COMMUNICATIONS

Pemaquid Communications, LLC (www.pemaquid.com) is one of Maine’s leading Web design studios, focusing on high quality code and design, along with a no nonsense, practical approach to online marketing and social media consulting. Pemaquid was the first design studio to create Facebook apps and the first to create sites that are accessible to the visually and physically impaired in ways that don’t compromise the look and feel of a site. In the last three years, Pemaquid sites have been nominated for techMaine.com‘s Best of the Web awards ten times, more than any other design studio. In 2009, Pemaquid won a first-ever entreverge award for business innovation for pioneering the concept of coworking in Portland, Maine.

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