Redesign Of E-commerce Website

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT US:

Obbuna Materials is a business-to-business start-up that distributes building-block materials such as fasteners (nuts, bolts, washers) and raw materials (metals, plastics, rubber) to companies that engineer, prototype, and build high-tech products. Our primary customers are entities working in any sort of high-tech related physical development field -- medical device manufacturers, university research labs, and new energy start-ups (solar, wind, ethanol).

HERE IS WHAT WE NEED:

A redesign of our current beta site: http://obbuna.alorusdemo.com/

OUR TARGET AUDIENCE IS:

Web-savvy users in the industries mentioned above: engineers, grad students, lab technicians, etc.

WE LIKE THESE DESIGNS:

Our company sells very traditional products to a technical user-base. We are seeking a design that communicates that we appreciate and incorporate recent trends in web design and technologies.

This is an example of a site design that is typical for our industry:

http://www.mscdirect.com/

This is an example of a site design in our industry that utilizes a more progressive design:

http://www.smallparts.com/

Our new site design should take the next step. Its design should gain inspiration from sites such as these:

http://www.stackoverflow.com/

We like the use of squares and rectangles for the navigation bar links and other assorted links

We like the grays used in the navigation bar and the highlighting effect when you click on a link

We like the font/font weights variation used in various parts of the site

We like the simple login link in the upper right

http://www.gilt.com/

We like that the text and pictures are large and of high-quality

We like that when you scroll over links, they highlight or change color

This is an invite-only site. If you need an invite, message us.

http://www.kickstarter.com/

We like the rectangular navigation bar links

We like the simple use of large text for the tagline

We like that while the site width is 960px, a graphical bar at the top stretches the width of a users monitor

http://basecamphq.com/tour

We like the design of the basecamp product, not the design of the marketing site

We like the use of rectangular links, of simple text links, and of different font sizes/colors to indicate importance

WE ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE (or we don't want to see) THIS IN OUR DESIGN:

Please design each page using the 12-column 960 Grid System (http://960.gs/)

Please use the current logo

Please use the current color palette

o The primary color should remain orange. We like the use of grays/blacks in other parts of the site, but we are also open to using a second accent color that is neither gray nor black.

Orientation

o Category links should remain in the left pane

o Logo should remain in the upper left

o The search box should remain prominently displayed on the page. While it does not have to remain above the category links, it should not be minimized.