The brief
We were to design and develop a bespoke site, which represented the way the customer sees her business, both in terms of style and delivery.  The site would have a portfolio, secure contact form – along with a tightly integrated gallery and blog

Site history
Caron previously had an incomplete Joomla installation, which was attempting to sell and show photography using a Virtuemart store.  Joomla + Virtuemart is normally an excellent combination, but as a vehicle for showing and selling photographs, it really doesn’t work

The design
We worked really closely with the client to produce a template, and the typography for the site.  We bounced around ideas for a few weeks, fine tuning some ideas, and resigning others to the recycle bin.  In the end, we produced a really clean fresh airy template, that lets the customers photography shine out

We wanted the blog and gallery to have a total visual integration with the site

Working with the client
We had a very close working relationship with the client allowing us to produce exactly what the client asked for.  We developed some ideas, demonstrated them to the client, and then had a 2 way discussion with the customer.  We then modified these ideas, taking onboard the clients comments.  Working like this allowed us to produce a unique site, which the client is delighted with

Feature list
- Customer updatable portfolio – with a beautiful slideshow
- Static information based site
- Fully integrated, secure, fully featured photo gallery with e-commerce
- Fully integrated blog
- Security by design
- SEO by design

CSS & Typography
The typography for the site was developed in-house, and then tweaked to the client’s specification.  The seamless integration of the very diversely different dynamic parts of the site with the static parts of the site is due to the smart way the template and CSS are put together

Cross browser support
By design the site is coded to support and display correctly in Safari (on a Mac + PC) IE 5,6,7 Firefox 2, 3 and Opera

Technologies
This site uses HTML, PHP, SQL, DHTML, AJAX, A server firewall,  CSS and Javascript

SEO
As with all of our sites – the site has SEO built in – across both the static and dynamic parts of the site

Portfolio’s
The client shoots a range of different types of photography.  The portfolio section is simple, and to the point, allowing the work to showcase itself.  We used a particularly pretty reflection slideshow which we heavily modified and crafted into the site design

Photography gallery
We used a standard installation of Gallery2, and then got to work on the templates to fit the site design.  This has produced a visually unique installation of G2 retaining all of the backend and front end functionality.  One feature that is particularly excellent for photographers is Gallery Remote – which allows drag and drop of images from the photographers desktop

Blog
We used an installation of WordPress, and then wrote a template for it, to match the sites template

Training
We don’t just install and run.  We install, and bring our customers up to speed with the front and back ends of the website.  WordPress and Gallery2 have fairly steep learning curves, and we are there all the way through the learning process with the client, ironing out issues, and explaining how to use the site

Total integration
It might seem that we are banging on about this, but a bespoke static site, with a blog, and gallery, with a seamless integration between all of the component parts is a big deal, and not seen very often.  Often, sites have 3 different looks, as users jump between the different sections.  We are really pleased with the overall look

The future
We will continue to support and work with the customer over the following months and years, providing further training, minor tweaks and updates as required

Marlin was also keen to have a secure contact form.  This is provided using a PHP script in the background that handles email.  We produced very simple and effective typography for the site, which although uses a standard browser font, is very readable after we worked the letter and word spacings

Address: www.marlinworldwide.co.uk/