We were extremely pleased to be a part of The Poster Cause Project web site and store redesign. Not only are they an active fund raiser for worthwhile causes, they also support the work of some of our favourite artists.
Anthony (of The Poster Cause Project) had some very clear ideas of what he liked, which helped push the project along quickly. Making the cart and newsletter sign-up a significant part of the header was important. The cart works site-wide, pulling in item details from Big Cartel via iframe when the visitor is not in the store. Cart content text changes colour once items are added, to draw attention to the controls (one of Anthony’s ideas).
We maintained the featured product block as the main element of the splash page but made it dynamic, customising the page controls to enable future product changes to take only seconds. We created a custom admin panel dedicated to the “latest donations” list, so zero formatting is required and the process of updating content is further streamlined.
Pulling in the latest tweets with JSON rounds out the splash page content. The social and supplier links in the footer give some block colour on rollover – I like these.
On the blog page we included what is becoming our standard Facebook, Twitter, Comment prompt for visitor response to posts (what else do you need these days?). The generation of these links is our own custom script, including generation of a shortened URL for tweeting a link to the post.
For the artists page we created a custom gallery, requiring only the upload and naming of an image per artist. The page generates the content automatically by cross-referencing the name with The Poster Cause Project’s stored links to find the artist’s web site and also generates a separate link for the artist’s product category in the shop. It finally puts it all together with a thumbnail of the uploaded image.
The friends page displays all the site’s links in some neat lists while allowing content to be added top of page via the standard WordPress page edit controls.
The search link replaces the menu with two search forms, one for the site and one for products. These work identically from the store or from the site.
For the shop we wanted the images to be height biased to suit the product being sold. We intentionally created a design that would accommodate The Poster Cause Project’s existing product images so that reformatting was not required after the new design was implemented. A close up section of the posters is displayed for the main page product list, the latest six products are shown at a larger size than the remaining stock. Mouseover action gives a hint of more poster detail on the latest six products and displays the product title for the smaller thumbnails. The price bar is colour coded according to product status, on-sale = green, sold-out = dark grey, etc. Additionally, we added a “sold out” banner that is revealed automatically according to status. These design decisions result in an uncluttered, high impact display of the products.
For the single product page we re-organised the elements and used a full size image display to show the product off without the need for a pop up image viewer. Additional views (when available) are handled via thumbnail navigation located under the product description.
Visit the site – thepostercauseproject.com
