The organiser of the event (The Adventurists) provide each team with a basic website with a blog and other features. However Bharat Express were not happy with the look of these sites, and so appointed me to design a template to work with the organisers systems, and to advise and assist with other IT related matters.

My brief was to create four sites with a common look, but the headers for each were to be different – each header had to have a phot0 of that team’s car.

Speed was of the essence because the rally starts tomorrow (17th July), and whilst the template was designed, it took a while for the teams to give me the content to put on the four sites.

The job was a little tricky because it involved working out how to use The Adventurists web platform, and design the template using a mixture of CSS and HTML,  but I managed it, and both I and the teams are delighted with the results (see screenshot below).

Screenshot of the site for Bharat Express Team 1

Each team’s site had a similar design, apart from the headers which had to incorporate the car that particular team was driving (see below):

In addition to the site design, I will be providing internet and technical support for the team whilst they are en-route to Mongolia. Their journey begins tomorrow from Goodwood Motor Circuit. If you would like to sponsor them please visit their gateway page (designed by another company unfortunately – they had this done before I got involved) at www.bharatexpress.co.uk

The organiser of the event (The Adventurists) provide each team with a basic website with a blog and other features. However Bharat Express were not happy with the look of these sites, and so appointed me to design a template to work with the organisers systems, and to advise and assist with other IT related matters.

The new look sites will be ready in a couple of days.

The site, which features animated graphics, and details of their entire product range went live today. See the screenshot below or visit Nene Communications.

The site is powered by a custom ASP application of my own, linked to a database and features an easy to use WYSIWYG browser based admin panel so Nenecomm can easily add or change content 

Pete Tandy the owner of the Nene Communications is delighted with the site and made the following comments: “I love the simplicity of the site, and it’s clean look. The animated graphics and photos that you came up with and combined with those that we sent really add to the look of the website. You have done an excellent job Jason, especially given the small budget we gave you.”

Screenshot of Nene Communications new website

As usual, the site was completed on time and within budget.

Summary:

• Website application coded in ASP, SQL, XHTML 1.0 Strict, CSS 3
• Content partially provided by Nene Communications, and edited/completed by myself.
• Logo supplied by customer but enhanced by me.
• Some photos supplied by customer, but 2/3rds of the photos were supplied by me.
• Simple, easy to use, browser based admin panel.
• Many SEO optimisations included.
• Google Analytics set up so that customer can see detailed visitor stats.

CoConi is an upcoming American singer whose new single “Get Your Light Up” was recently been featured on BBC Radio 2 and other stations.

My brief was to create a “gothic, but feminine” look on her website and social networking profiles, and to include social networking features on the website itself including:

• Automatic tweeting of new posts to CoConi’s Twitter and Facebook pages
• Social bookmarking features to allow visitors to coconimusic.com to send bookmarks by email and to bookmark any page onto their Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and Digg profiles.
• A mailing system allowing users to subscribe easily to the website to receive an automatic daily summary of new posts to CoConi’s site, and to also allow easy mass emailing to the entire subscriber list using a simple browser interface.

Other features include:

• Previews of music securely contained in a player (on pages featuring singles, EPs and albums).
• A “Concerts and Events” page listing upcoming shows in chronological order, with maps to the venue. The first 5 future events are also shown in the sidebar on every page).
• “Buy Now” buttons for all of CoConi’s CDs.
• A control panel for CoConi and her management team to add new articles and content using their web browser.
• Full SEO optimisation.
• Contact forms.
• Comment forms for visitors.

See below for screenshots or visit CoConi’s website, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter pages.

Screenshot of CoConiMusic.com with highlighted features

Screenshot of Photo Gallery

Easy subscription option for visitors

CoConi's Facebook fan page

This was an interesting but complex project which bought together a lot of different skills. I managed nevertheless to deliver the finished site on time and within budget.

I am delighted with the end result, as is CoConi, her management, and her PR consultants (incidentally whose clients  include Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake).

My designs are tailored to your specific needs to ensure your site looks and works exactly how you want it to.

My portfolio includes simple static sites, blog based sites (with many added features  to integrate your site with social networking services such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and social bookmarking services such as Digg and Delicious), e-commerce sites, and database driven sites.

Where appropriate I will add an easy to use email subscription service to your site, so users can quickly subscribe to your mailing list. Not only does this mailing service allow you to quickly email your entire mailing list – it will also email them all every time you add a new post to your site (or if you are adding posts frequently you can opt to send daily or weekly summaries of new posts instead).

Sites for customers who wish to post their own content to their website include a browser based administration panel for easy additions or changes to content whenever required. It’s as easy as typing a letter.

If you don’t already have a website, then no problem. I host hundreds of websites, and can provide everything you need to get started without you having to concern yourself at all about any of the technical issues.

Screenshot of Website Homepage

The background position themselves either side of the page for irrespective of the size of the browser screen, so the site looks balanced and attractive for any screen resolution.

A simple contact form enables customers to get in touch…

Screenshot of contact form

… and the addition of two “Lightboxes” means that every page carries a full list of the services provided, and all the locations they serve. These are “tucked away” in Lightboxes, so that although these details are in every page, they do not show unless the viewer clicks on the relevant buttons.

Screenshot of a "Lightbox"

All in all, an attractive website, coded from scratch by hand in a text editor using ASP, XHTML 1.0 Strict, and CSS  2.1 (fully W3C standards compliant of course) . It was very rewarding to design, and as usual I completed it on time and within budget.

Summary:

• Custom designed logo.
• Custom designed “active” menu buttons.
• Fixed page background which sizes to fit the screen.
• Transparent header, navigation sidebar and content area.
• Contact form.
• Two “lightboxes” which grey out the main page when activated (except in IE – it worked OK, but IE really struggles to handle transparent lightboxes unlike decent browsers), one to display a list of services provided, the other to show a list of all the company’s branches.
• XHTML 1.0 Strict (fully standards compliant).
• CSS 2.1 (fully standards compliant).
• ASP.
• Coded by hand from scratch.

After extensive collaboration with Makepak’s managing director I came up with a very nice looking design which displayed their products with up to 20 photographs per item, and also featured and rss feed, and an email subscription service. An easy to use admin panel allows Makepak staff to quickly add, edit or remove machines from their website, and also lets them choose to email their entire subscriber list as soon as a new item is posted to their website.

Please see below for some screenshots or visit Makepak’s site

Screenshot of home page

Screenshot of item information page

Makepak have been so pleased with the performance of the site on Google and it has generated many leads and sales for them already. I am currently working together with Makepak on further additions to the site as part of their internet marketing strategy. 

The website was completely coded from scratch in CSS, XHTML1, ASP and SQL and is hosted by me. As usual, it was completed on time and within budget.