Baptist Milestone.com

I haven’t been in the habit of updating this blog… ever. But I wanted to mark the launch of the new Baptist East Milestone Wellness Center site.

I recently helped Jay Lane Media finish up this project, which had seen several iterations and developers. Due to a heap of varying circumstances, the previous developers were unable to complete the site to the needs of the client. So I stepped in to help wrap everything up and finally launch this site which had been in progress for over a year.

While a considerable amount of code was in place, including versions of the now-live class scheduler, there was still a lot of work to be done. Among which was:

• Speed optimizations
• Transition of many elements such as the homepage from static images to readable, accessible, editable text
• Outline of a upgrade path as well as definition of which CMS utilites would be left accessible to the end client and which would only be accessible to the admin
• Security upgrades
• Rebuild several forms to match updated functionality requirements
• Cross-browser testing
• Provide a client-updatable system for controlling their personal trainer listings and other staff
• Rewrite parts of the class scheduler to allow interface options such as a weekly listing of classes

Some features of the site:

• Event Scheduler – filterable via AJAX, added Weekly tab, updated design to match client’s needs
• Membership Form – input data, receive customized printable trial membership card
• Section-specific collapsed navigation – you don’t need to see all 500 subpages of other child or grandchild pages in the same category. Doesn’t sound like much, but WordPress can make this a little bit of a pain at times.
• Customized backend – thanks to manipulation of theme’s functions.php file
• Security and speed optimizations via minification and .htaccess manipulation

Tech used: Photoshop CS5, Espresso, CSS3, HTML5, Javascript/JQuery/AJAX, MySQL, WordPress, PHP

TL;DR: Redid a bunch of existing work and added increased functionality, working both from designer’s PDFs and my own design elements, for both content pages and dynamic forms and content areas.

Maverick Wine Gifts.com

I recently worked on a new site design (as well as some branding for new wines) for Maverick Wine Group’s new http://www.maverickwinegifts.com/. The site design was completed by myself, and I also coded the homepage. The store pages were coded by and are provided by Nexternal.com.

Century Beauty Webstore

The Century Beauty Webstore project was primarily a redesign which incorporated javascript and installation of a blog on the site. It started off as a heavily customized OsCommerce installation that wasn’t working quite right (and looked pretty gaudy). Customers could purchase items, but ancillary parts of the system were out of wack. Besides the redesign to remove the 5 tints/shades of mauve, we were tasked with bringing the inventory system up to spec and integrating the other parts mentioned above.

The site is currently running just fine over at Bluegrass.net. Century’s internal server updates/receives updates on product information and quantity, the warehouse receives an automated printout of all sales orders straight from the store software, and customers are purchasing at a greater rate than before. While the store is limited to Salon professionals, there is now an expanded area of the site where non-professionals can get beauty tips, product updates, etc. via the blog. I’ve even integrated Century Beauty’s MailChimp newsletters into the site so members can review past promotions and non-members can catch a glimpse of what they’re missing.