We met Rusty Partridge, owner of Black Dog Timberworks, through a client referral in 2009. Black Dog Timberworks is located in western Maine, and the scope of the project was to create a great looking logo, and then build a website that highlighted his custom timberframe structures and others services that he could manage the content of going forward. Moving into the online realm was a big step for Black Dog Timberworks, but we were both convinced that with a great site, highly optimized for Search Engines, his business would certainly grow in 2010 and beyond.
Black Dog Timberworks builds hand-crafted, custom timberframe homes, barns, and structures, and we had to convey that craftsmanship and unique detail in the design of the website. To accomplish that, we decided on a highly stylized design that incorporated warm, earthy colors, wood grain and rustic textures, subtle gradients in some of the graphics and a script-like customer testimonial font, while still keeping a modern “shine” on certain design elements.
It was a project requirement that a Content Management System (CMS) be available to Black Dog Timberworks as well so that they could make changes and update the site with new photo content as they complete projects this coming year. Here is what Rusty said about the the CMS we have them using:
“you did a great job in setting things up for me to
update and change easily. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.” – Rusty Partridge
To make new project photos easy to update and display on their new website, we created a Flickr account for Black Dog Timberworks that allows for super easy image upload and manipulation, as well as creating slideshows with detailed descriptions for each of their new projects. By leveraging and then integrating free web software like Flickr, we were able to add functionality to the site that the client wanted, and were able to keep the cost low at the same time!