frankfurt Archives - Interfanatic Digital Marketing with Web Site Maintenance & Design

Beauty: GKAD – Architects – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

This week, we celebrate our customer GKAD. We chose GKAD because they embody and the Interfanatic Quality of this week, which is beauty. Their architecture is beautiful in so many ways.

GKAD – Goeckmann & Kleespies Architects, of Frankfurt, Germany, are incredible architects who see their task from a very different perspective. They don’t just create beautiful architecture and beautiful spaces. They don’t just create functional architecture and functional spaces. They make beautiful, functional architecture that is functionally profitable for the owner. It’s not just architecture, it’s not just design. It’s profitable architecture and design with an eye toward improving the spending habits of the customers who enter the building and space.

And that’s why the Buckminster Fuller quote of the week is perfect. Their solutions are not simple on the inside, but GKAD’s architectural solutions certainly appear simple to their clients and to the customers who use their clients’ businesses. They just work.

GKAD Architects: Goeckmann & Kleespies Make Beauty

The team at GKAD is phenomenal. They make beautiful. Beautiful things, beautiful places, beautiful business.

GKAD’s specialty is high-frequency architecture. These are restaurants and shops in train stations, airports, and in city centers. Their architecture is experienced by many tens or hundreds of thousands every year. But those hundreds of thousands may miss the subtleties GKAD’s customers do not: the architecture invites people to spend.

GKAD’s designs bring high-dollar customers, and they bring those customers to spend even more. GKAD employs colors, geometry, and layout to keep people in front of the high dollar items and make those high ticket items more inviting to buy.

It’s genius. Pure and simple. And that genius is beautiful.

So next time you’re in the market for outstanding and beautiful architecture that will influence your bottom line, look to GKAD.

Beauty: An Interfanatic Quality

“If the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
– R. Buckminster Fuller

We constantly seek the simple approach. Right there, I just did it. My mind said, “we are constantly seeking the simple approach”, but my simplicity trigger went off. “We seek” is simpler than “we are seeking”, yet they mean about the same thing. And this is something we do in every project. What is the most simple approach? It is likely the most effective and the most beautiful.

Sometimes great complexity is required to make something seem simple. Sometimes a great deal of thought and pairing down went into finding the simple, beautiful solution. We’re all ways looking for the simpler way. We’re always looking for the more simpler, yet more interesting way. Interfanatic always seeks the most beautiful way to celebrate our subject.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic The Works Design

Last week, we showed how we simplified a customer’s site. This week, we describe how we made something complex simple and beautiful.

This is not a Wix site. GKAD.de is a bespoke design you have never seen before. It is beautiful, and it is simple, but the beauty is in the details. We created this site design with one of the best designers. We worked it over using our best UI people. We found simplifications and efficiencies. Then we applied it to a very fast server, such that the heavy home page video load would seem lightweight even on mobile.

The result is a beautiful website with layers of design and detail – just like GKAD’s architecture.

I think their site is beautiful even though it’s not the original design concept we imagined. Sitting with Ivo Goeckmann, principal of GKAD, I had the idea to begin a short video from the same perspective of all three stages of a project: with the blueprints of a building they created, then animate it into an artists technical rendering of those blueprints, then animate that into a a live video of the architecture in use. Sadly, it was not to be – GKAD overruled me and came up with these interesting animation videos, which are very cool.

“The result of our website design process for GKAD is a beautiful website with layers of design and detail – just like GKAD’s architecture.”

The site has a number of interesting touches, from the home page videos, to the animated icons, to the animated menu, to the animated waterglass that fills as you fill out the contact form. All this and more make for a website design you will not see anywhere else. It is beautiful, and it is unique. And, most importantly, it is effective – just like their architecture.

One thing that is missing from this project though: SEO. They did not want their site to be found! They deal with very exclusive customers, and they only want their site to be found on their personal reference from a business card. It was strange to avoid one of our key talents and skills, SEO, for this project. But, that’s what the customer wanted, and that’s what works best for them. So of course, we were happy to accommodate.

We can do design at just about any budget. But we love working on projects that, like GKAD, require a statement.

Interfanatic: We’ll Be There, and At Times That’s All the Beauty You Need.

Earlier this week, we were notified that one of the pieces of software we employ had a vulnerability, and needed to be updated immediately. So we dropped everything and updated that software immediately. This didn’t lead to any extra charges, it’s part of our management.

A client recently called. They needed help. We helped them. It didn’t cost them any extra. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But that client wasn’t use to it. That client was used to not getting a call back, or getting a million reasons why they couldn’t be helped. These are the stories we here all the time.

These are the stories we work hard to avoid. We’re here for you. And if you know anything about this business, you know that’s a beautiful thing.

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Strength: GKAD Architects – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
– M. K. Gandhi

There are times an indomitable will is insufficient. If I were to try to take on Mike Tyson, for instance, in a boxing match, no amount of indomitable will would keep my head attached to my neck when he inevitably pops me one.

But outside of physical contests, in great measure will defines the level at which you can train to compete. Your training defines the level at which you can compete.

Gandhi was not a strong physical specimen, but his strength changed the world. His strength carried his voice through generations and around the world. Not bad for a little guy!

(We love fighting for the little guy by they way. We love to make the little guy into Goliath.)

But that’s not the client I think of this week. I think of a client who’s already strong and capable: GKAD Architects, in Frankfurt, Germany.

They’re a commercial architecture firm, and they design high-use facilities. They create restaurants for airports, and popular cafes and markets. Their design is up to code, resilient, and best of all, inspires and accommodates purchasing behavior.

If you own a chain of restaurants and you want to build a location at a high-volume metro or train station, go to GKAD. They have the strength and knowledge to finish your project at a level so high, you’ll be profitable at your new location in no time.

That’s why, when I think of strength, a number of our clients stand out. But this time, I want to focus on GKAD.

Strength: An Interfanatic Quality

We didn’t last over 20 years through weakness. The Interfanatic Way is to keep after projects until they’re done – and successful. We are inspired by the strength of our clients and we love to inspire strength in our clients.

Interfanatic does that by being there for them when they need us. We have the experience and the creativity to bring fresh perspective, to help them build a foundation for better business.

GKAD Architects: Strength Through Architecture

Goeckmann & Kleespies are phenomenal architects and designers based in Frankfurt, Germany. They don’t build houses; GKAD create places people want to spend money.

Their niche of architecture is highly technical and highly emotional. Building a cafe in an airport isn’t easy – the regulations are enough to put most architects off the job. Who wants to deal with that kind of red tape? Well, GKAD does.

They make a place that is to code, of course. But then they also make it comfortable. And beautiful. And that is special. But then, the beauty must last. You can’t build a restaurant with cheap materials because after the first 100 customers, it will begin to look poor. When you have hundreds of customers per day, you have high-frequency architecture that has it’s own special needs. GKAD takes care of that. But yet, on top of that even, they then bring more psychology into their masterworks – they make a place that inspires spend. They design architecture for their clients that not only meets the need, it ensures their clients will make money.

The strength of their architecture is definitely within its physical capacity. But they do so much more – they make money for their clients by moving to – not the next level beyond – the next order of magnitude beyond. It is their indomitable will to create something amazing and so highly functional and timeless that makes them the best architects in Germany.

“GKAD create places people want to spend money.”

We’re quite proud to work with GKAD. We had an idea, we worked together to hone it, and the result is something interesting and special. This isn’t your average website. It displays their ingenuity, their strength, and their capability.

It was a step in an opposite direction for us. They don’t want their website to be found. They only want their website being seen by people they talk to. Usually, we want to create a volume of traffic. Not this time.

We love working with unique and interesting projects – it’s always an opportunity to learn. It’s always an opportunity to grow in strength.

Interfanatic Service Focus: Interfanatic Website Management Packages

The bedrock of all website function is its management. We have hosting and management packages for budgets of all sizes. It’s fun to work with new, small businesses; it’s just as fun to have an impact on established businesses. Watching owners light up because of great results is satisfying no matter how long they’ve been around.

We handle your hosting and updates. We keep your site up and running. When new technologies emerge, we help you evaluate and implement the ones that make sense for you.

We do that because we’ve been there before. We’ve been doing this for over 20 years. We may not have seen it all, but we’ve seen most of it. And we know what works, what’s going to stick, and what to pass on. We’re here to help you make money, and we do that very well.

Interfanatic: Designing, Building and Supporting Strength

Let’s make something beautiful. Let’s make something effective. Interfanatic and you can build something strong that will last.

This week’s image:
Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

Strength, an Interfanatic Quality. Interfanatic Digital Marketing founder Ryan Delane takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.

I saw this pretty image while on an outing with my wifey. We popped up to PV one day and on our way back down the hill, I saw this view – Los Angeles through the palm trees. I had to stop to take the picture. Sadly, modern phone cameras are terrible. I miss having a real camera to work with! But the sentiment is there: tall palm trees that can take the beating of wind and thunderstorms, and the strength of powerful buildings of downtown Los Angeles. There is strength in this image.

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Tenacity: Goeckmann & Kleespies, GKAD – Interfanatic Customer Spotlight

Customer Spotlight, Partners

“There can be no invention in the absence of tenacity.”
– Momofuku Ando

Tenacity. The man who created a food that feeds many nations quickly and easily knows everything there is to know about invention. And we’ve all heard the stories: invention doesn’t happen in a solitary eureka moment; great invention is the result of tireless toil. Of a willingness to keep going.

Architecture and construction jobs require tenacity, too. (As do website designs and builds). A customer keeps making changes, is not happy despite their previous ecstatic evaluation. But we all must keep at it, until the project is complete.

Ivo Goeckmann knows all about tenacity in his high-frequency architecture business in Frankfurt, Germany.

Tenacity: An Interfanatic Quality

Sticking with a project despite setbacks is one of our signature moves. No matter how tough things get, we’re set on completing the project. When a client orders a substantial change, we keep as close to the budget as we can. But we finish the project whenever possible.

“…We finish the project…”

We know, as Ando knows, and Goeckmann knows, sticking with it is a chief requirement of greatness.

GKAD: Architecture Designed

Goeckmann and Kleespies create high frequency architecture that inspires customers to buy. Just as we create websites designed to inspire customers to buy, they create whole environments that are safe, meet regulations, beautiful, and encourage the mood of customers to spend money and enjoy doing it.

They’ve taken on major clients, to install their stores in airports, train stations, and even fine dining establishments in downtown cities. When a customer enters their completed project, they’re taken to a different place, put in a different mood. It’s inspiring work.

We recently completed the design and subsequent build of their website, gkad.de. It was a challenge to balance technical wizardry with beauty, but we did it (at least, they say so.)

Next time you’re in Frankfurt…

It is Interfanatic‘s great pleasure to work with GKAD. I actually lived in Frankfurt years ago. But I feel I have a home in that city, and it is a great honor to create a home for a great Frankfurt firm on the Internet. We wish the whole staff of GKAD well on their next project, and their next, and their next.

After our website design and build was complete for GKAD, they now have a business card to take proudly with them everywhere a connected device exists.

It wasn’t easy, but we stuck with it, and we got the project done. And we made sure it seemed simple to GKAD, though it surely was not. That’s how we embodied tenacity for this project, a project that surely deserved it.

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