“Technically,” Ungvarsky says, “we learned a few tricks in terms of the way the navigation endlessly flows.” Swirls of animated icing form and build each section as visitors move through the site, an experience as mouthwatering as can be without actually tasting the frosting. The lion’s share of Bakemania’s clients are brides and mothers—ladies who want to know the exact level of creativity and professionalism they can expect from the product they’re purchasing. Not only has the website brought Bakemania floods of compliments and new business, but Grow Interactive has enjoyed a flurry of new interest in its work as well. “We get lots of potential clients referring to that site as something they like, especially the boutique-type ones,” Ungvarsky says. “Within our industry, too, we’ve had great valida­tion with the feedback and accolades the site has received.”

Art director Joe Branton describes his team’s aesthetic inspiration as having come from the cakes themselves. It was essential for the site to express just how much creativity goes into these cakes and to adequately illustrate just how delicious they are. “We wanted to find an original approach and strong execution,” Branton says, “while still making sure the user could get the informa­tion he or she needed to start the process of ordering a cake.”

Constructed mainly using Illustrator and Flash, the illustrated style of the site was a first for Grow, and choosing the right color palette turned out to be one of the more challenging aspects of designing it. The team found the concepting process particularly enjoyable and had fun trying things that for them were new and different. Branton was very impressed by the inventive way Flash developer Gabe Molochko animated the interface and transitions to give the site its vitality. Having only a vague idea of how it would animate when giving Molochko direction, Branton says he wasn’t 100-percent certain it would be effective. Molochko made it work, pleasing the client to no end. The site is a beauty and the extra attention for Grow Interactive is icing on the cake. Dana Rouse