Cavalier Bremworth

Size: 46 template pages

My professional status: contractor at DNA

Website client: Cavalier Bremworth

Dates: January - February 2009

Brief: to build a set of template pages for the redesigned Cavalier Bremworth website. This website represents the first roll-out of the new Cavalier Bremworth branding, which was also done by DNA.

I was responsible for building the templates and preparing them for integration into a custom-built .net CMS by AIM Proximity in Auckland. The new site incorporates a very high level of interactivity for visitors considering purchasing a new carpet from the company, and therefore included a large amount of jQuery and Shadowbox programming, for which I was also responsible.

My responsibilities included:

Initial assessment of the site IA and design to produce a fixed-price quote for the site build - within a very tight timeframe and equally tight budget constraints
Development of the site in pure CSS and XHTML 1.0 Transitional, which would then be integrated into the .net CMS by AIM Proximity
Liaison with AIM Proximity's development team in order to ensure that they could easily integrate my templates into the CMS
Hand-coding in XHTML 1.0 Transitional to a reasonable level of accessibility
Creation of dynamic graphical effects including accordions containing tabular data, four different types of tooltips, removeable information panels, two image maps, automatic child > parent relationships generated in the subnav, and an image- and content-switcher on the homepage - all of which I wrote using the jQuery JavaScript library
Incorporation and programming of sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) which uses Flash to dynamically replace HTML text where a specific font is required
Selection and integration of an appropriate jQuery-friendly Lightbox-type plug-in for image galleries, forms and popup web pages sitewide - and subsequent restyling of the Shadowbox plug-in to match the original site design as closely as possible
Research and development of a JavaScript method which would enable Shadowbox to resize its iFrame height according to the amount of content displayed. Neither Shadowbox's developer nor the many users of this plug-in have been able to achieve this before, and my method could certainly benefit from some refinement, but I feel pleased that I was able to at least start the ball rolling on this oft-requested Shadowbox feature
Extensive testing of the site at all stages of the development process, ensuring consistency across the following browsers and platforms:
- PC: Internet Explorer IE6, IE7; Firefox
- Mac: Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Safari
Ensuring that every template and stylesheet had been validated using the W3C Markup Validation Service and that it conformed to XHTML 1.0 Transitional requirements
Development of print stylesheets sitewide - printing the site, as far as possible, with the same layout and styling as on-screen.

This was the most technical build I had done up to this point, in terms of the jQuery programming required. The learning curve was extremely steep, within a very tight timeframe, but I delivered the site on-time and on budget, as I always aim to do. The integration team at AIM Proximity were very pleased with the files I supplied, and completed integrating the site into a purpose-built .net CMS in double-quick time.