PacSun Golden State of Mind

What is the purpose of the site?
PacSun came to us looking for a flexible, cross-platform, web experience to support their new national brand campaign, “Golden State Of Mind. Its purpose is to connect their core customers and digital brand presence to their national retail locations. The content-based site was designed to change with the seasons and provide a unique, sun-soaked point of view that lives and breathes California.

What is the target audience?
The target audience is 18-to-24 with an equal male to female customer base, and always on the go so the site had to live across desktop, tablets, and mobile devices.

Development
From concept to completion, how long did it take to produce the site?
From concept to completion the site took 2 1/2 months.

How many people and/or agencies worked on the development of the site?
JUXT Interactive (1 agency), roughly 10 people.

Was this site part of a larger promotional campaign? If so, what part did the site play?
“Golden State Of Mind” is a national campaign for PacSun. The GSOM website serves as the hub offering campaign content, event information, social feeds, sweepstakes, and promotions.

Did you meet with any out-of-the-ordinary obstacles during development?
Getting the homepage to scroll upwards was a challenge, but we worked through it with trail and error.

Content/Features
What do you think are the site’s core features?
A core feature of GSOM.com is an interactive map that showcases all content on the site, tagged to locations up and down the Golden State. Fashion shoots, brand and event videos, notable places, and local insider reviews are all pinned by category allowing users to explore the state based on their interests. Street views can be accessed for closer looks and discoveries.

How many videos, images, and other media elements does the site have?
The site grows everyday with contributions from both the PacSun brand and a legion of brand ambassadors, bloggers, content creators, and correspondents throughout the state providing an up-to-date, endless flow of pure California.

Describe any special interactive features on the site (community, RSS, etc). Is there a content management system in place?
Yes, there is a content management system in place; it controls the blog, content (photo sets and videos), and homepage experience.

Structure
How does the site handle download times (progressive, caching, etc.)?
There is a lazy loading process in place to handle image load for photo sets.

Please comment on the file structure: How many files and levels are used?
553 files in no more than six levels.

How many different content modules are contained within the main site?
Seven that are actively used.

Navigation
What was the thinking behind the navigation structure?
When landing on the homepage, the user is presented with a peek of the latest content added to the site that lives in a dynamic drawer below. The user has two choices: scroll down to open the content drawer, or scroll up to explore the brand experience – to a Golden State Of Mind. As the user explores higher they encounter videos, playful galleries, and fluid visuals and images that seem to never end. We designed the homepage experience to feel like an infinite loop, communicating the idea of a never-ending, visual expression of a higher state of consciousness.

Are there any special navigational features on the site?
The navigation stays locked to the bottom of the browser as the audience explores up the page in the homepage experience. At any time, the content can be accessed by clicking, or in the case of tablet viewing, dragged open by the tab. The entire site technically lives within the drawer.

Technology
What software, back-end technology, and programming languages were used to create the site?
HTML5. CSS3. jQuery. PHP 5.3. Apache webserver.

What plug-ins are required to view it?
None.

Are there any other technical features you’d like to call attention to?
We are able to resize images on the fly in the back-end using GD2 library in Linux.

Response
What was the response to the site? Was there a viral component that was successful? How many visitors has it received since launch? What impact has the site had on increasing sales/awareness for the client?
It is still early in the overall Golden State of Mind launch, but in the first two weeks the site is averaging 50k unique visits a week. This is the beginning of an organization-wide repositioning effort, to leverage PacSun’s California heritage and become a more iconic California brand. All of the graphics will be update seasonally, and they will match the overall brand campaign in print and in-store.

Designer: JUXT Interactive
Country: United States