The Spirit of Christmas
The Brief:
The project:
Project Summary
In 2015, a community group in Wivelsfield decided that it was time the village had its own Christmas Celebrations. A fantastic, festive evening set in front of the The Cock-Inn pub followed, with live music, a Christmas Light switch on, Santa’s Grotto, carol singing, a hog roast, wine and mince pies…. The list goes on!
As a new event, people needed to know about it. It was decided that the best way to promote the festivities taking place was through printed flyers distributed around the village and via social media. There was also an issue with keeping track of the number of attendees (Santa couldn’t see more than 100 children in an evening!), so a simple registration system was necessary.
I designed a striking publicity flyer for delivery around the village, using the requested colours – blue/silver/white. Taking inspiration from early 20th century art deco graphic design, the flier used simple graphics and bold, classy typography to create that all important festive feel. I also designed and hosted a similarly themed single page website, providing information on what was happening on the night and space to add your family’s name to the guest list. Once registered, people even received an email from ‘The Elves’ to confirm that they’d put extra presents into Santa’s sleigh!
A website is never really ‘finished’. Once the design and build process has been completed, you’re most of the way there – but there are likely still to be times where something needs changing, modifying or adding to. Whilst you’ll have access to edit your website’s content yourself, it’s never nice to be left on your own – so I provide a support service to help out with small changes and tweaks as they become necessary. I’ll periodically install the latest feature and security updates for you, and if anything ever goes wrong or if you just need a hand – I’m only an email away.
I build all my client’s websites in WordPress, an open source content management system. WordPress is the software that runs the site, allowing for much more complex features than a static site. It allows you to login, update content easily and make changes without coding. Over 70 million websites are using WordPress, and because it’s open source it’s constantly being added to, updated and developed. This means that it’s very secure, stable and well supported.
The WordPress CMS platform is incredibly powerful. There are thousands of extensions and extras that can be added to your site to give it extra functionality, and it means that your site is always easy to extend. On top of unlimited pages and content, I can incorporate more advanced functionality into your new site, such as contact forms, image galleries and even E-Commerce Systems.
Websites are now a crucial part of running a business or organisation – making it easy for people to find out who you are, where you are and what you do is hugely valuable. What doesn’t look so good, is a website with outdated content. I make editing and updating your website really easy, since I use the WordPress Content Management System. All you have to do is login, edit a page as though it’s a word document, and save your changes. All done. Finished. Simple.
You’re unique, and I believe that your website should be too. I don’t use pre-built templates, and instead I create a design and layout that fits your business/organisation more personally. Not the same as anyone else’s website, but designed and built just for you, using your logo, images, colours brand and style. If you’ve got an established ‘brand image’ then I’ll work within your guidelines, or if you want something new then I’m always happy to get stuck in and create something fantastic.
Your website visitors won’t just be browsing your site on a desktop PC or laptop. They’ll use all manner of different phones, tablets and other devices, and it’s important they’re all kept happy. That’s where responsive design comes in. It allows a website to scale nicely to fit the screen size it’s being viewed on, optimising the layout and content for the device. No more zooming in and scrolling to read text – just a smooth, well designed mobile browsing experience.