SoCal Sydney

If you live in Sydney, you’re likely quite familiar with Applejack Hospitality Group, who operate several restaurants and bars in the city. The passion for hospitality of founders Hamish Watts and Ben Carroll has led them to get fully involved in Sydney’s social scene and night life, but they realised early on that these days you can’t tap into a potential client base without a “seriously good” website. So naturally they turned to us at SGD.

After designing sites for two members of the group—Bondi Hardware and The Botanist—we set about creating one for SoCal Sydney, a bar which aims to bring the laidback, southern Californian surf vibe and theme to Neutral Bay. Considering this relaxed atmosphere, there was no way we were going to use anything but a parallax scrolling design for the site. In parallax design, the background of the website moves at a different speed than the rest of the page. Not only does this intrigue viewers with unique page depth, animation and interaction, it slows down their experience on the site, making page visits last longer. Such a quality is indispensable to SoCal Sydney, because it precisely mirrors the atmosphere they want to create. With parallax, they can tell the story of their site at a gradual pace, with a beautiful background, just as if we all were sitting on the beach in California.

SGD really pushed the boundaries of web functionality with this site. For instance, many designers consider parallax incompatible with responsive design, but we made it happen! Yep, SoCal Sydney’s website is mobile and tablet friendly. Other features include a gallery of photos of the bar and an extremely simple form for submitting reservations and enquiries. We’re also particularly proud of “The Cali Journal”, an interactive blog providing interesting information about the bar, including events.

So if you’re looking for a great design and amazing functionality, make sure you contact SGD to talk about bringing your idea to life!