Yesterday I launched my favorite project of all time. Eep!
SweeTea owners, Susan and Karen, are local. We met at my first Chamber meeting back in May (or June) where they approached me to redo the website for their Southern sayings tshirt business. I was new to the mountains, eager to get some local business, and even more eager to meet some locals. After meeting with them and hearing about their business I was sure we'd be a great fit.
Fast forward through summer, taken up by my projects and their shows and we get to around Thanksgiving when I had my first official meeting with the SweeTea ladies. They had a great vision for what they wanted from their site, which they wanted to transform from an informational site used mostly by their wholesalers, to a full eCommerce site that would satisfy both their need for a wholesale venue, and so that they could start filling some retail orders of their own.
The site design went quickly. They had a great vision of bright colors and lots of texture, which I was able to give them with a woodgrain background and Kraft paper accents. I also included several hand-drawn elements. My favorite part of the design is the contact page.
The time-sucker for this project came in their product listings. Karen was great enough to supply me with a product spreadsheet (complete with almost 400 items - 3-6 items for each shirt style), but each of which had to be formatted and completed with product images.
I hooked the ladies up with the Business Catalyst system so that they can easily manage wholesale and retail orders, as well as do their own edits and list their own items. We also used this for image galleries, several contact forms and perhaps a blog someday.
Working with Karen and Susan was such a pleasure, and I am probably more excited about this launch than I have ever been over any other. Working face-to-face with clients definitely has it's advantages and I hope to work with these ladies again soon.
So, go buy a shirt, why don'tcha*!
*I seriously try very hard to squash my Southern accent, which I loathe tremendously, but I just could not resist.
