Fortive

Drupal redesign for a growing company

Fortive began as a new diversified industrial technology company in 2016 after branching out from Danaher. With their company's growth, they needed a new website that could grow with them.

SERVICES PROVIDED

Scoping
Custom CMS
Drupal Development

PARTNERS: DOUBLEKNOT CREATIVE & VITAMIN-C CREATIVE

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Meet Fortive

Meet Fortive

As a fast-growing company, the design and overall content strategy of the Fortive website became the top priority. Cue Drupal 9!

Fortive branched out from Danaher, and in the past Bear Group had successfully developed the Danaher website, so they gave us a call when they needed their inaugural website. We provided support for Fortive through our Run State post-launch support program in recent years.

In 2021, Fortive had grown tremendously and progressed in a direction where significant content updates were needed to reflect what they do today. This is a common driver for a website redesign, as well as a brand refresh, or technology change (we see brands doing major refreshes to their sites every three years on average).

“Our company has progressed so much since our launch five years ago, bringing changes to our technology and software offering, and the way we talk about our business to all our stakeholders.”

Lucy, Fortive

The Challenge

In Fortive’s case, the changes in how the company wanted to present itself from the primary navigation on down, created a substantially different information architecture. There was no major rebranding effort that necessitated it, but the way that they now talk about the business had changed.

During the first iteration of the Fortive website, we worked with Design Hovie Studios, a long-time partner with Bear Group. In this go around, we worked with DoubleKnot creative on the design and UX. They brought exceptional experience and interactivity to the website to help bring it to life. And long-time collaborator, Catherine Carr, at Vitamin-C Creative worked with Fortive on the content and Information Architecture refresh.

The Solution

It's easy to fall into the trap of creating a site map and then scrambling to fill buckets with content once the site is done, but the best sites begin with planning and writing. You are investing time and budget in your site, and it should meet your needs — you shouldn't have to retrofit later.

In Fortive’s case, their content needs were driving the redesign, so naturally, they had a content plan, reviewed by many members of the organization, that was completed ahead of the design.

With the content plan in hand, DoubleKnot’s team was able to focus on the Fortive brand, content wireframes, and how to bring those together in meaningful ways with UX and design. We partnered with them on design reviews and mapping the build plan over several months.

various screenshots of the fortive website

The Results

To take advantage of the latest Drupal CMS improvements, we moved Fortive to Drupal 9 and improved the hosting environment. The content was largely redone, so rather than upgrading this build was done from scratch and took advantage of new content types and content structures.

Interactivity was a key feature improvement, and DoubleKnot’s design team introduced more movement and interaction, bringing the new website to life for the end user. This included background video within the javascript rollover effects, text effects, carousels, parallax, and other visual animations and effects.

The new Fortive website launched in Fall 2021. It’s always a pleasure to work with the brand and communication teams at Fortive!

Case Study Highlights

Custom Drupal 9 CMS

We moved Fortive to Drupal 9 to take advantage of the latest CMS improvements while improving their hosting environment.

A Fresh Design

DoubleKnot Creative introduced a fresh, clean design and interactivity to the website to help bring it to life. This includes visual effects, carousels, Javascript rollover effects, and more.

Content Overhaul

With an all-new content strategy thanks to Vitamin-C Creative, we took advantage of new content types and content structures to streamline the website.

Bear Group continues to be a steadfast and trusted partner. We know we can rely on their expertise and project management to get the job done quickly and beautifully.

Erin, Communications Consultant