A gift from Kat Valentine with a little help from Jay Albert and I to The City and all those who love it here.
Read more from Kat Valentine-
Rebranding Gloucester
It’s been too long since I updated this blog but life has been busy. Much to my surprise (and delight) the knitting book launched in March has been a big success and I’m very, very happy to say I haven’t blogged because I’ve been busy with that. But it’s time to post about my latest project.
The City of Gloucester, which I love, is going though tough economic times, like many of us. One of the hardest decisions the mayor had to make was to eliminate the position of Director of Tourism. This left the tourism council with a tough problem, how to maintain their web site. They asked for volunteers and I raised my hand.
As I familiarized myself with the web site I saw a lot of problems with it. It is loaded with good information but is not particularly attractive (it suffered from too many cooks…), loads slowly and is not particularly enticing.
Because I love Gloucester and all it has to offer I contacted two of my fellow lovers of Gloucester, Jay Albert, the photographer who maintains Cape Ann Images, and Joe Ciaramitaro, of Good Morning Gloucester. “Let’s make an awesome web site that really promotes our city,” I said. “Count me in,” they said. Thus began the redesign to show the world the Gloucester we love in the hopes it will entice people to come here.
Once we had the site underway, Jay and Joe supplying the images for my design and organization, we approached the Tourism Council. The response was very positive. This is the new home page which features audio and a Flash video you have to visit the site to see.
Many of the pages have been completed but we still have work to do. But the main objectives are to 1.) show the many amenities Gloucester has to offer including activities, culture, dining, shopping, etc. and 2.) to provide as much information as possible that will allow those planning their vacations to consider Gloucester as a desirable destination.
As a further enhancement we are adding a new, sexier URL: www.iLoveGloucester.com. Right now it points to the test server but eventually it will be attached to the actual site along with the exisiting URL.
So, we have work to do but progress has been exciting. We have a fantastic product in our beloved city, packaging and marketing it is the challenge. Take a look at the site and let us know how we’re doing: iLoveGloucester.com
It should be noted that Kathleen did a vast majority of the work on the site. She is incredible and gives a ton of her time and energy into promoting the city we love.
You can check out her many sites here-
- Valentine-Design Home Page
- Resources for Artists in the Digital Age Slide Presentation
- Parlez-Moi Blog
- Kathleen Valentine’s Personal Web Site
Good Morning Gloucester 
Thank you, Joe! I want to add that there are many people who contributed to this. Tracey Muller of Bass Rocks Ocean Inn proofed the site and called the businesses listed to verify their information. Laura Dow of the Vista Motel also helped with supplying information and fact checking. Mike Wells, the City’s IT wizard helped with the technical details.
The site will be updated periodically so if anyone has suggestions you can send them to me or Laura Dow. Jim Barber of JimB Media has contributed a revised page about bird watching with additional photos that will be added next week and Dave Overstrom will be helping to integrate the new calender which we are still working on.
But the biggest thanks go to Joe and Jay for their fantastic photos! You guys supply the “eye candy”!
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One more thing — since the http://www.iLoveGloucester.com site went live on Thursday it has had over 800 visitors!
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Great Job Kathleen!
Beautiful looking and working site.
I like the name too.
I’ll put a link to it on my site so all 5 people a day can see it. ;]
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I’ve checked it out already, from this former web developer, it gets two thumbs up! The site looks great and represents Glocester very well.
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All right everyone. With a team like this, it can only do good for the city. Excellent. Great job.
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Kathleen, you have done a great, great job and I am so thankful that you stepped up to the plate and brought such talent along with you. We are so lucky in Gloucester to have such dedicated citizens ready and willing to share our beautiful city with people everywhere.
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Kathleen, Joey, Jay and all involved-
Great way to promote the city! Keep up the good work!
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Thank you all for creating this great site. I’ve already passed it on to a friend from NY State and it’s convinced him to come for a visit!
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