I have received a lot of positive feedback about this design and it is one that I am very proud to have made for a very special client. While some technically minded folk suggest interesting ways to deal with family tech support questions, I opted to go another route and build a product display website for my parents stained glass and woodworking business – Sawdust & Glass. What better testament to a platform could there be than It’s so easy my parents could use it?
The original version, build circa 1998, was hardly representative of their design style. The concept for the new site was to make it look like the desk of a stained glass & woodworking artist with some dynamic touches (random product photo polaroid and upcoming show post-it note). With so many different product types, the categorization capabilities of WordPress were put to good use. Users can browse their products by area of interest and display of each product thumbnail makes the browsing process a very visual experience. Other features include:
Upcoming Events
The majority of sales come from craft shows / tours around Southeastern Ontario. Since they attend 1 – 3 events per month, a calendar view was less valuable than a table driven presentation to show date / location at a glance with links to detailed event notice including integrated Google Maps.
Store Locations
There are a few stores where Sawdust & Glass products are also available for direct sale on a regular basis. Each store is highlighted on the site along with address/hours of operation, photo and Google Map link making it as easy as possible for interested buyers to locate.
Studio Photos
Using the same category / display page concept as the product gallery, the artists can share more information about their tools and techniques via the Studio section of the site. This happens to also be the house that I grew up in – so it’s nice to be able to see what creative construction takes place inside online.
Having consistent style across multiple media re-inforces the branding value. I also created a business card and invoice template that use the wood texture and styles from the website.
Artisan Boutique
January, 2008
Artist, Small Business
http://sawdustandglass.com
Custom Plugin(s), Custom Theme, Graphic Design, jQuery, Logo Design, PHP, Print Media, WordPress
Blog, Event Calendar, Photo gallery
I have received a lot of positive feedback about this design and it is one that I am very proud to have made for a very special client. While some technically minded folk suggest interesting ways to deal with family tech support questions, I opted to go another route and build a product display website for my parents stained glass and woodworking business – Sawdust & Glass. What better testament to a platform could there be than It’s so easy my parents could use it?
The original version, build circa 1998, was hardly representative of their design style. The concept for the new site was to make it look like the desk of a stained glass & woodworking artist with some dynamic touches (random product photo polaroid and upcoming show post-it note). With so many different product types, the categorization capabilities of WordPress were put to good use. Users can browse their products by area of interest and display of each product thumbnail makes the browsing process a very visual experience. Other features include:
The majority of sales come from craft shows / tours around Southeastern Ontario. Since they attend 1 – 3 events per month, a calendar view was less valuable than a table driven presentation to show date / location at a glance with links to detailed event notice including integrated Google Maps.
There are a few stores where Sawdust & Glass products are also available for direct sale on a regular basis. Each store is highlighted on the site along with address/hours of operation, photo and Google Map link making it as easy as possible for interested buyers to locate.
Using the same category / display page concept as the product gallery, the artists can share more information about their tools and techniques via the Studio section of the site. This happens to also be the house that I grew up in – so it’s nice to be able to see what creative construction takes place inside online.
Having consistent style across multiple media re-inforces the branding value. I also created a business card and invoice template that use the wood texture and styles from the website.