Working Together

Introduction:

This is the story of a wonderful client, a great designer, and a full-time job that got in the way.

It’s not easy being your own boss, running your own business, or putting yourself "out there." But the artists and craftspeople of Handwork do just that. Their unique, high quality works in a variety of media, from photography, watercolor, ceramics, woven and fiber art to glass, jewelry, wood and mixed media, speak to the human need for self-expression.

Project Goal:

While certainly not an artist’s first love, a cooperative requires the artists to own, operate and market their business themselves. To this end, Handwork has worked for several years with Allison Kaiser, a talented freelance graphic designer, to design their print advertising. This year they also asked her to create a new design for their web site.

The new site design came together beautifully, showcasing the artists and their works and visually complimenting the colors and style of the physical store. However, as project deadlines approached, full-time employment prevented Allison from realizing the design in HTML.

So, Allison asked if we could help.

OBA Solution:

One Bad Ant was thrilled to be asked. Working with Handwork and using the designs and graphics Allison developed, we assembled the site layout, its look and feel, added new content, and implemented the site’s new navigation features.

Here are some of our contributions to the project.

• Highlighting the Artists: We developed a dynamic slideshow for the home page. This slide show rotates through brief introductions of the artists and samples of their artwork. This is a great way to add more detail and information to the page and highlight the artists without adding clutter.
  
  
• Highlighting the Artwork: There is no substitute for seeing the artists' works in person, and just like the physical store we want to present the art in the best possible light. To this end, we used a "Lightbox" feature to expand images of the artists' works and dim the page background. This allows the art to stand alone on the page and helps visitors focus on the colors, detail, and texture of the art without distraction.
  
  

We thoroughly enjoyed developing this web site. It was inspiring. We enjoyed working with Allison and Handwork to create a site that met the co-ops' high standards and complimented the artwork of these talented, skilled artists.

For your own inspiration check out their new site, or better yet, stop by the store!