Another site I designed and built went live tonight.
Juniper Films are documentary film makers who specialise in capturing stories and images of the South Pacific.
Their 30+ year history is also marked by a pretty handy sideline in chronicling lives and events in the Australian arts industry.
A highly enjoyable project, this one. Just having the chance to browse their images library made it irresistible – such gorgeous photos of blue seas and skies, intriguing cultural practices (smoking a person to cure them of leprosy – interesting idea) and beautiful, beautiful faces.
But then working out what the point of the site should be and tailoring the content, structure and design to suit was also very satisfying. It could have been just a brochure site, or it could be taken to a higher level.
In that sense, this is one of those projects that is bigger than just buidling a website, in that if I can manage to convey effectively what the web can do and what site visitors might do at a website, everybody gets enthused, the creative juices start flowing and some exciting web presence with clear, practical objectives can eventuate.
In this case, the launch deadline was determined by the fact that a New Zealand TV station would today be spruiking the site as the place to obtain the DVD release of one of Juniper’s films.
That kind of promotion is priceless, of course, and must be accommodated, even if it means the launch date has to be brought forward by a week or more.
And indeed, Juniper reported that they were receiving orders within hours of the site going live.
Hope it makes a motza for them.