RSSJanuary 31st, 2008
[SHOWCASE] Chris Rice Store and Premiere Speakers
This past month, we had the opportunity to finish up a couple of really great projects . . .
Chris Rice Store
We love working on eCommerce projects, and the Chris Rice store was no exception. Chris is a fantastic musician, and an even better guy to be around. Quite simply, the main objective was not to stray very far from his current website design (done by our friends at Visual Inventor), but to still create something fresh and easy to use.
This project is running an early version of our Springboard store platform, which is coming along very nicely. Enough talk, here’s a screenshot and link to the site . . .
Premiere Speakers Bureau
Another one of our projects that just launched is for Premiere Speakers Bureau. Premiere works with the very best public speakers in the business, and their company is second to none in that business. They are very professional from top to bottom.
We worked with them to design and code 4 templates, then handed it off to John McGary and his team to implement with their current system. They did a really nice job, and it was fun working with them.
Here is a before and after look of how things turned out on the home page . . .
PremiereSpeakers.com (before)
PremiereSpeakers.com (after)
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October 23rd, 2007
[SHOWCASE] Carlton Financial and Best-Selling Author
This month we had the opportunity to launch 2 websites that we really enjoyed working on: Carlton Financial Group and Best-Selling Author.
Carlton Financial Group
This website is definitely among the more simple designs we have done, but I think it really turned out well and represents just what our client was looking for. The main objective was to provide educational information about insurance services the company provides, and to encourage potential customers to touch base for a quote.
Insurance in itself can be confusing and daunting for people to get into, which is why we really wanted to keep things lightweight, simple and super-easy to use. The whole site really browses nicely, and has some really useful functionality to help people.
Best-Selling Author
Our team gets really fired up about doing e-commerce websites. There are so many things to consider when building an effective shopping cart that maximizes conversions, and this store turned out to be a fantastic example. Despite other great features and functionality on the site, if it does not help to convert sales, it is unsuccessful for our client.
Although there is some debate in e-commerce circles about the effectiveness of multi-step checkouts versus one-step checkouts, we thought a one-step checkout was best for this site. Once customers click the “checkout” button from the cart page, it’s just one page to complete the order. Thus far, it has been very effective. The cart is run by our in-house Springboard store software, so order fulfillment and customer management is a snap for the client.
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July 18th, 2007
[SHOWCASE] Peter Nash Dogs
This week we had the opportunity to launch a really fun project for a world-renowned photographer named Peter Nash. He has taken some very well-known shots of people like Sheryl Crow, Johnny Cash, Julia Roberts, Emmylou Harris and Kenny Chesney just to name a few. What makes Peter unique is that he made a decision to do something he was truly passionate about. His passion is to photograph dogs. As you will see, his work is phenomenal, and it was awesome creating a website to showcase his work.
This project was a little different for us, because the art was not in the design. It was the photographs. Our job was to create a simple design that got out of the way, so users could enjoy the photos. As with every project, we learned a lot and we are really proud of how it turned out.
There’s only so much I can say about this site—it’s just something you have to see to appreciate. My favorite thing about it is obviously the galleries. A huge THANKS goes out to JonDesign and their SmoothGallery script, which we customized for Peter Nash Dogs.
So go ahead and check it out! Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments.
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April 24th, 2007
[SHOWCASE] Maui Sales
We recently launched a really fun project for MauiSales.com. This company is one of the top real estate firms in Maui, Hawaii and it was really great working with them. Our team learned a ton along the way, and we are very proud of the final product.
In addition to the design and layout, we also did a custom XML database integration so that users could dynamically search the Maui MLS on the site. We designed and built this integration from scratch, and it has a number of features that are unlike any other Maui real estate website. Such as:
- Users can search for properties from nearly any page on the site
- Once a search is done, users can easily narrow and sort their search, or just start over
- Each listing has an available “printable version” for beautiful printing
- Not to mention, we think it looks great and is really easy for people to use
Try the search out for yourself, it’s a lot of fun looking at the amazing homes and condos available for purchase in Maui.
Web Standards and SEO are Friends
One thing that was a major priority for this client was search engine optimization. In a highly competitive real estate market, SEO is a great way to gain an edge. Since we create all our sites using web standards, the new design is creating instant results.
Thanks to some really clean code and fantastic work from Alex at VKI Studios, MauiSales.com is already receiving more traffic, and moving up in some really popular search terms. If you don’t believe me, just search for “Maui Real Estate” on google. MauiSales.com is the #1 result.
We already have some additional features scheduled for this site that are just awesome, so keep checking back.
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February 26th, 2007
[SHOWCASE] Nancy Quarcelino School of Golf
Recently we launched another project for a client we are very excited about, the Nancy Quarcelino School of Golf. This school, located south of Nashville, TN, has two incredible teachers that are among the best in America at what they do.
My favorite part of the site is the functionality of the navigation/sub-navigation area. Designers can hardly ever go wrong from a usability standpoint in using some form of tabbed navigation, because it is instantly familiar to most computer users. The tabs, combined with a bright sub-navigation on interior pages made for a simple structure that is painfully easy to use. Note the use of “active” and “rollover” states with each link, which also gives the user more certainty with navigation.
To give this project a little perspective, here is a screenshot of their site before the redesign, and then of the final design we went live with.
Homepage (before)
Homepage (after)
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February 3rd, 2007
[SHOWCASE] dinette.com
This week we launched a project that we had been hard at work on for a number of months. Dinette.com is one of the leading furniture stores on the web in selling quality dinette sets, and we helped them with their first redesign in about five years. We also completely re-worked their checkout process to increase conversion and minimize cart abandonment.
I hope to do a more detailed case study of the work done on dinette.com in the future, but for now we just wanted to provide a few before/after screenshots of the site. Make sure you visit and check everything out for yourself, we really had fun working on this project.
Homepage (before)
Homepage (after)
Category Listing (before)
Category Listing (after)
Shopping Cart Page (before)
Shopping Cart Page (after)
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January 13th, 2007
[SHOWCASE] newsboys and Andy Andrews
We have been working very hard on some really great projects over the past few months, and are excited to be launching a number of sites early in 2007. I just wanted to take a moment and share two of them that were launched yesterday, January 12th.
newsboys
We originally did the design for newsboys.com back in 2006. They loved the design, but went through a couple of companies to develop the site and it did not work out for whatever reason. So, we got to code this design and it was a lot of fun. The newsboys do a lot of great interactive things on their site and have around 20,000 fans per day logging on to participate. We hope this is a really positive step for them in creating a functional, yet fun environment for their fans.
Andy Andrews
Andy and his team is very near and dear to Project83 from the very beginning, as we have been working with them for nearly three years. They have a great message, and completely trust our team to make their website beautiful, yet very easy to use.
This was a challenge from the beginning, as we decided to do a 3-column liquid (content scales with the browser window size) layout with fixed-width sidebars for the homepage. Without the help of some great resources, this layout may not have been possible. A few months and over 1,100 lines of CSS later, we had a great layout that looks fantastic across numerous browsers and platforms. We were very proud to launch this one yesterday.
I am looking forward to more frequent blogging efforts and some really interesting topics over the coming months, along with more exciting website launches. Stay tuned!
Posted in Showcase - 5 Comments