We have recently completed a brand new website for one of our clients. Take a brief look into the process.
The client's website is now live at pharmagenesis.com and we're really pleased with it. Here's the story of how it happened.
Back in September, we began working with the client on updating their company website. They provided a detailed and excellent brief for us to work from. The new website had to showcase company services as well as provide information about the company and its offices and to aid with recruitment.
Design
Having a strong design before work begins is key. Using Sketch, a digital design toolkit, enabled us and the client to have an accurate template, complete with assets, to work with from the outset. Using a design software like Sketch means that much of the design can be signed off in advance before any work begins. This is particularly useful if the design needs to pass through (a sometimes lengthy) approval process, enabling the client to sign off the look and feel of a website before development begins.
Development
Wordpress is an excellent Content Management System (CMS) that provided us with the foundations to build the design on top of. Translating the design over is a fairly straightforward process, as you can export and use many of the assets from Sketch. However, a static 2D design does not offer much help in how the website should function, such as moving HTML5 elements and video players. We worked closely with the client to get these elements exactly right.
The entire site is built around Bootstrap 4, a modern CSS development framework and features several elements, including, CSS3 animations to create dynamic movement as the pages scroll, video smart sliders that work across all devices, Twitter API to pull in client Tweets and custom forms for making contact and uploading CVs for job applications.
We used several plugins and technologies to help us along the way, such as:
- GitHub - a version control system to track source code to help structure all of the changes
- GULP - a package management tool that helps us quickly and easily import resources directly into the project
- SASS - a compression tool to minimise the size of files such as CSS and Javascript
In addition, we had to ensure that all of the old website content, such as news items, were transferred over to the new site and that page links were retained. This helps retain existing search engine rankings and improve SEO.
From start to finish, this entire project took only 10 weeks, including several rounds of reviews and feedback. The site went live on 10 December 2019.
Your next web project
We're always working on many different web projects for our clients as well as some very bespoke solutions for conferences and events as well as pharmaceutical clients.
Get in touch with our team to discuss your next project.