Michael Spencer Woodworking
- Category:
- Web Development
- Medium:
- XHTML/CSS/XML/Programming/Search Engine Optimization
- Date:
- 2007
My brother in law, Michael Spencer is a very talented woodworker. His site is a showcase for selected furniture pieces he's crafted. Each piece of furniture he makes is custom made using old world techniques. Mike had always wanted to build furniture for a living, and one way to get started was to create custom piece for friends, family, and other customers on the side. To get things started, he needed a website to showcase his previous work.
The trick with the website was to create a "showcase site" rather than the typical furniture store site. I have done a few of the online store designs before, so separating myself from the typical marketing flare was a little difficult at first. Once I played around with some of the great photos my mother took of his work I began to get a feel for something a little out of the norm. This showcase style is designed to put the photos of Mike's work first, after all that's what his site is all about. By creating transparent layers and a hide-able menu the viewer is able to get an up-close look at all the detail that goes into Mike's craft. With stunning photos, this wasn't too hard. And making everything simple, clean, and intuitive the focus never leaves his furniture.
The next step was to make the site easily updateable. I designed the protfolio engine to run off of an XML file that contains info on all of the furniture pieces. This would allow me to have the update process be handled by one central file, that is useable to the rest of the internet as a basic XML document.
Customers can contact Mike via a basic web form for inquiries about his custom furniture.