Sunday, February 27th

6:45 PM: Our design & advertising partner (Innova Design & Advertising) down south alert us via emails and text messages they need our services. Their client just realized a temporary website needs to be up and running by the following Tuesday. They have worked up all the temporary graphics and flash.

In case you didn’t notice, this request came in at 6:45 PM. <cough>I thought I’d <cough> point that out. <cough> <cough>

Knowing how great of relationship we have with our partner and our long history, we know they wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. We throw on our cape and spring into action.

The Requirements

Look & Feel

We were given graphics files with the look and feel desired. This is the equivalent of writing everything out on a sheet of paper and saying, “Go build it now.” This is typically referred to as a form of “paper prototype.” It helps eliminate any of the guesswork concerning the end product (temporary website).

Flow

Entrance Page > Check Age > Flash Animation > Page Showcasing Bottles

Legal Age Check

This is a little different from the past. Legal requirements somewhere someplace demand the use of an age check in order to enter the site. Client does not require country functionality at this time.

Flash Animation

The flash animation must transition to the bottles. This must be done by overlaying the animation over the static content (bottles). The flash animation will end with a transparent background. We were provided the flash animation.

Deadline

Must be completed and live Monday

Server Technology

Usual LAMP setup (Linux Apache MySQL PHP)

The Solution

The process involved the following:

Build it

• Finish grabbing dinner and burn the midnight oil
• Break down the graphics provided into images that can used on the web
• Build the web pages. This is combination of HTML and Styles Sheets
• Place flash animation
• Make a decision between server side scripting (PHP) or client side scripting (JavaScript & jQuery). We opted for client side.
• Program the scripts to check the visitor’s birthday
• Sprinkle a few fade-in animation effects

Deploy (make it visible to the world)

The site was deployed Sunday night. Unfortunately, the site had to be pulled in the morning. A few items had to be reworked, but nothing major. It’s done now. It even looks great on an iPhone.

The End Product

http://www.izkalitequila.com/

Technology

JavaScript, jQuery, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), HTML, Flash

Other Thoughts

Testimonials

“They are so excited! … Thank you so much!”

“Looks beautimous!”

“Thanks for coming thru”

Reflection

The keys to delivering this great-looking website quickly are communication and focus. Over the years, we have worked closely to streamline the process involving our design & advertising partner (Innova Design & Advertising). They focus making the client look sexy on the web and Mojica Consulting makes it happen.