SPIN Magazine isn't the first iconic brand Raincity Studios has shepherded into the brave new web world, but is definitely one of the most exciting projects we've ever brewed up.

Much is written about the tricky process of successfully publishing content both in print and on the web while maintaining brand consistency, keeping reader interest and still making revenue. Indeed print and web are different media but with the SPIN project, we've found a comfortable balance by creating a comprehensive online magazine publishing platform.

Working closely with Karl Mattson, Eric Nowels and Peter Gaston, we crafted a plan to enable client self-management, retain established visual styles, and provide an entertaining and intuitive experience for loyal SPIN readers. Raincity created three original designs, performed a challenging database-migration and with that, created a comprehensive plan to serve a wide variety and amount of content from SPIN's existing print and web-articles.

The final result is more than just a website - the new SPIN is a custom platform specifically engineered to efficiently house and manage a growing trove of compelling content and make it accessible and enjoyable for readers.

This site also led to the development of a new Drupal Module Quick Tabs - developed by jQuery ace KatBailey who says,

"An example of such an implementation is on www.spin.com (though this uses an "ancestor" of Quick Tabs called jQueryViews) - the content for each tab comes from the same view, it just passes in a different argument each time which is then used as the offset for the view. The idea for Quick Tabs in fact came from the needs of Spin.com. It was important to be able to pass in views directly, and with this level of flexibility, into the tab content."

As fans of quality music and journalism, Raincity Studios looks forward to seeing SPIN serve as a model of how a print magazine can successfully step up their web presence to become a full companion to the print edition rather than just a sideline.