The Dow Bay Area Family Y has selected 989 Design of Bay City to complete a redesign and upgrade of their website, ymcabaycity.org. Construction on the new $13.2 million YMCA, located at 225 Washington Avenue, was completed in December, 2011.

“With our new facility now open, we are offering many new programs, classes, and events. It’s very important to enhance our web presence to help get the word out,” says Membership Director John Rooy. “The new site gives us the opportunity to bring the Dow Bay Area Family Y branding more in line with the YMCA’s national brand and, more importantly, it will have much more information available for members and health seekers alike.”

989 Design is a graphic design and marketing studio, with clients including the Great Lakes Loons, Saginaw Spirit and McLaren–Bay Region. The design studio is partnering with Essexville-based web developers MJ Media to complete the new site. 989 Design and MJ Media have partnered together on a number of occasions, most recently to create the new website for last fall’s 6th annual Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Festival.

“When I first started as a designer, web design didn’t even exist as a career path, so when I do web design, I bring in a programming expert rather than try to be everything to everybody,” says 989 Design owner Shawn MacDonald. “When it comes to programming and development, I wanted to work with MJ Media because they have the cutting-edge web development and programming skills that are needed to make this site a success.”

The new site will offer easier navigation, social media integration, a searchable program catalog, secure online registration options as well as a responsive mobile site to make browsing faster for mobile phone and tablet devices. The new website is scheduled to launch on April 30th.