PLATTMOUNTS

DSHK CS#6 / DSHK_1447_PLATT

W&E PLATTMOUNTS: KEEPING PERSONNEL SAFE
AND ON TARGET FOR OVER 30 YEARS

PLATTMOUNTS HOME SCREEN F/S CONFIGURATION

- BRIEF -

Established more than 30 years ago Australian company W&E Platt started on the road to building the best vehicle based gun-mounts in the world. From humble beginnings and the original swing-mount, Plattmounts have gone on to be used by armed forces all over the world on vehicles such as the RG-31, Stryker, MRAP, LAV, HMMWV and other platforms such as the British army’s BvS10 VIKING, VECTOR BULLDOG and the TERRIER.

- THE GOAL -

A company with such a long heritage and international footprint, needed a brand new website that would establish it on the internet with all the integrity it had earned in theatres of combat worldwide.

• Stand-out against the competition

• To look unique amongst others in the defence industry

• Robust and yet technological look and feel

• To place Plattmounts at the top of the market

• Established in 1977

• Clear and prominent product range

• Clear easy to access company and product information

• Obvious contact details

The goals here were to create a website with the gravitas a company with 30 years of history under its belt deserved and that visitors would expect. The new website needed to exhibit the growing range of Swing and Ring mounts, Marine mounts, Weapons systems cradles and Product peripherals, indeed the entire Plattmounts range. The new site also needed to introduce the visitor to Plattmounts offices in Europe, America and the HQ in Australia.

– CONCEPT / THE CREATIVE SITE –

INTRO ANIMATION SEQUENCE

We decided to build a F/S (Fullscreen) enabled interface for this website. This means that regardless of the size of the computer screen, the website would fill the whole thing. The menu was deliberately simple and designed not distract from the content too much, but with colours that became obvious once rolled over and of course each menu item was clearly labelled. 

The website was designed to look robust, using custom carbon fibre texture for the backgrounds of the menu and other features on the site. Subdued colours were used throughout and a strict, simple pallet of graphite, gunmetal and carbon was followed.

PRODUCTS SELECTED, CATEGORY RING MOUNTS

The exception to these colour rules was the Contact Us button, situated to the right of the screen in a bright emergency orange. Another exception to the pallet was the all important Products button, situated to the left and differentiated in olive green. The home page features a clear mission statement so the visitor can decide if they have come to the right place right from the home page.

PRODUCT FEATURE SCREEN - MR 550 SHIELDED RING MOUNT

The four main product categories were also featured on the home page so at a glance the visitor can see where to go. Product pages feature an animated hero shot and once loaded offers the visitor the option of rolling over key features of the product to flag up detailed snippets of information. Each product page also includes a gallery with stills of the product in action etc. Many of these were provided by Plattmounts clients and agents. A secondary menu including all the products in the chosen range runs along the foot of the product pages, this allows the visitor to easily navigate all the products in a category without having to reopen the main products / category menu.

ALL PRODUCT FEATURE PAGES INCLUDE A DEDICATED GALLEY

Although the website was developed for a serious subject, it was designed to have a computer game, Sci-Fi, OO7 agent feel. This is to help it stand out against competition and other defence based companies. An animated introduction was designed and produced in-house to help demonstrate to the uninitiated what a Plattmount was and it's 360 degrees of benefits. For this the strap-line "Keeping personnel safe and on target" was conceived.

ABOUT, PLATTMOUNTS HQ SELECTED. TEXT BASED CONTENT PAGE FEATURING A DEDICATED GALLEY

Each of the worldwide Plattmount agents were given a dedicated section including General Introduction, Contact Information pages and their own galley for which they were invited to submit photographs for inclusion. This was a nice touch and helped agents in far flung parts of the world feel that they were part of the wider Plattmount family.

DETAILS:

• Full screen interface

• Animated intro

• Full product range

• Product galleries

• Product rollover info snippets

• Agents sections

• Agents galleries

- THE RESULTS -

The very first incarnation of this site was actually built for the UK and European territories, but Plattmount worldwide liked it so much that it was rolled out replacing their existing presentation in both the US and Australia.