The Vancouver Club welcomed a new generation of members.
The Vancouver Club
The Vancouver Club has met since 1889, and in February 2011 it relaunched with a brand we created and a website we designed and built. We also captured the club in photographs and film, and in 2015 we redesigned its website for phones.
- Client
- The Vancouver Club
- Place
- Vancouver
- Sector
- Private club
- Website
- Launched in February 2011 and redesigned for phones in October 2015, on WordPress with a custom theme
- What we delivered
- Brand strategy, identity, brand guide, campaigns, photography, film, packaging, and the website’s design and build
- Credits
- Creative director and lead designer: Adam Bognar. Films: Ben Taft. Website code in 2011 and 2015: Andrew Simpson.
What they needed
The Vancouver Club has met since 1889. Its members gather in a heritage clubhouse on West Hastings Street, and couples and event planners book its ballroom too. When the club came to us, most of its new members were men over 55, and people outside its walls saw an old boys’ club. In 2009 its website still carried a 2005 copyright line and navigated by a row of image buttons. The club asked us for a fresh take on an image that had gone dusty. Younger professionals needed to picture themselves as members, and every change had to sit well with long-standing members who valued the crest and the archive.
What we did
We began by listening to current members and to younger people who might join. The prospects asked for history and authenticity, so the design drew on the club’s own archive. We refined the monogram from engravings the club already had and adapted the crest for the screen. In the fall of 2010 and again in the spring of 2011 we captured the club, and short films about its bar ran on the home page.
We designed and built vancouverclub.ca on WordPress with a custom theme. The 2011 layouts borrowed from Alexey Brodovitch’s magazine spreads of the 1960s, and a column on the left listed eight sections with a short line about each, so a first-time visitor could read the club’s whole offer before clicking anything. For the 2015 redesign we rebuilt the front end around the phone on the same WordPress installation. Its home page became a stack of modules that drop into one column on a small screen.
“Throughout the process, they were listeners. They came in and wanted to hear my story. And for a long time, they didn’t say anything back. They just listened, to me.”
What changed
The club measured the result in its own membership figures, which cover the whole brand program. By the end of our work, its new members were younger and more varied than when we began.
The new vancouverclub.ca went live with the brand relaunch in February 2011. In January 2012 its Engage section promoted the club’s first bridal show, with ticket details and the wedding film we made for it. The 2011 design served the club for four and a half years, until the redesign for phones replaced its front end in October 2015. That version stayed in use until 2019, and the club has since moved to a website we didn’t build.
