Discover Amsterdam from the water
Kooij's boats have been cruising Amsterdam's canals for nearly a hundred years. Thus, the shipping company allows tourists and Dutch alike to see the beautiful canals and history of Amsterdam from a completely different perspective.
In early 2015, we were approached by Rederij Kooij to give the then-current website a makeover. Suddenly you find yourself in the middle of the world of Amsterdam canal cruises with the experts in this field from Rederij Kooij. We accepted this challenge with open arms.
After several conversations, it turned out that the shipping company had something more in mind than just a restyling of the website. The entire structure and communication flow of the website needed an update. For this reason, together we chose to rebuild the entire website. This resulted in a fine collaboration that would continue for a long time and in which several smaller and larger subprojects would be realized.
Look and feel
The look and feel, the appearance of the website, was very important to the shipping company. The owner of the shipping company is very visually oriented. The question was to create an authentic style that suits the shipping company, in which the visitor immediately recognizes the company. Rederij Kooij has been a family business for almost 100 years and this had to be reflected in the design.
Multilingual
The shipping company focuses on Amsterdam residents, but it also sails a lot of tourists through the canals, and it wants to serve them well online. A multilingual website was therefore a requirement. To achieve this, we used a system which, in conjunction with our CMS system, ensures that translators are notified as soon as there is a new text in the Drupal site. They could then immediately translate it to which it was automatically uploaded into the site. The result is a website that is fully accessible in five languages.
Completion and further development
Through several rounds of textual adjustments and photography optimization, we were able to deliver the website and put it live. A great moment, but no reason to sit still. Right after this we continued with the implementation of an online ticket system.
Tickets are available online
Rederij Kooij sails special routes during two major events in Amsterdam, Sail and Amsterdam Light Festival. For Sail 2015, Rederij Kooij got into online ticket sales for the first time. In cooperation with Ticketscript and Rederij Kooij, we were able to implement the module for purchasing tickets online in a neat way.
Shipping company Plas
Rederij Plas is one of the three subsidiaries of Rederij Kooij. This website was also quite outdated and we were allowed to renew it. The structure of the Rederij Kooij website served as the basis for the Rederij Plas website. Some small structural adjustments were necessary partly because Rederij Plas does not offer the same tours as Rederij Kooij.
For the website, a new design was again worked out through a number of iterations. We managed to retain the unique blue look that the shipping company originally had. Although the website is based on the website of Rederij Kooij, we were able to give it its own character.
Proudly presented
Over a year on, we were able to convert two of the shipping company's websites, Rederij Kooij and Rederij Plas, into modern responsive websites in a style befitting Rederij Kooij.
Check the details
Interested? View more information about the project here.
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