Doddle

The Challenge:

In Stroud, Gloucestershire, Michael Dannenberg owns a studio dedicated to food photography.In spite of the fact that he had a website, it was outdated, wasn't displaying his skills as well as it could, and was not generating sufficient new business leads. There was a need for a new website that would work harder for him.As a result, he contacted Doddle for assistance.

The Solution:

Our starting point was to revisit Michael’s existing website and look at what could be done differently.Doddle suggested adding a few new sections so the website would provide more detail than before.

The new site has an about section that tells Michael’s story and gives his credentials so people can start to build a relationship with the person behind the lens. A case study section has been added, so people can see the diversity of work Michael undertakes.Other business opportunities were also explored and suggested to Michael. Doddle recommended that the studio be hired to create an additional revenue stream for the business. He liked our suggestion, so this was another element that was added.

Perhaps the most complex development work the site needed was the way photographs were handled and displayed. Every image on the website retains its original aspect ratio, so the integrity and beauty of the shots are never compromised. At the same time, a simple tagging system means it is easy for Michael to add new images to the site on whatever page he prefers.When it came to the look of the portfolio website, we deliberately kept the design very simple, so the photography is always to the fore.

The Results:

Within weeks of the new website being launched, Michael was receiving many more enquiries and securing all the bookings his business needs each month.The studio hire is also proving successful and generating an additional revenue stream.

The Challenge:

##The Challenge Cheltenham brand and packaging design agency, Hurricane approached Doddle to develop a brochure CMS website for their client Geary's. Hurricane worked with Geary's to develop a new brand that reflects the heritage of the company and a website to match. Transition's job was to turn their great design into an easy to use, content management system.

The Solution:

Working with the Managing Director, Meg Billcliff, Doddle consulted on the technical aspects of the project, providing advice and options for each required feature. Hurricane wanted to have a CMS that was easy to use — providing a framework that can be built upon in the future, as and when innovations are required. The content management system, Perch Runway was selected for its speed, ease of use for the client and SEO credentials.

The new website design has a lot of great photographs along with a video. Doddle implemented a system for managing photos which does not interrupt the clients' workflow. The site allows the client to upload files securely and efficiently. They are then transferred to a CDN for optimisation before serving back to the CMS resulting in fast page loads.

Hurricane also worked with Singularity Film on a promotional video for the homepage. The video is part of a slider which pauses when the user hovers over the slide and is fully responsive; this posed some technical challenges for us to overcome. The slider needed to continue to scroll if the video has finished or is paused. Using ES6 JavaScript allowed us to overcome this challenge with a few lines of well-constructed code.All these elements constructed a semantically well-structured site which is fast and search engine friendly, helping to reinforce Geary's brand and encourage engagement from their partners and customers.

The Results:

Working collaboratively with Hurricane and Singularity Film to deliver all the elements of this project has proved a great success. Geary's are overjoyed with the results, and Doddle continue to support them providing hosting and maintenance.The collaboration continues as we are now working on a second website for Geary's promoting a new line of products.

The Challenge:

After an initial consultation phase Doddle were engaged to join together their existing 3 websites, adding in the new eLearning facility, and ultimately making the new site easier to use and perform better for the band – this would observe a complete overhaul in design and functionality, and help secure the band’s brand which had been previously confused across the existing sites.

The Solution:

Doddle engaged with the band and their trustees to completely understand their desired approach. We took great lengths to understand and detail the heritage of the 1855 established band.After assessing and breaking down all of the content, we started work [designing](/web-design-services/web-design "Web design services" - we created thoughtful designs that considered the heritage of the band and the position they wanted to be in for the future. We took their existing menu structures across the band’s existing three sites and simplified the navigation, whilst importantly retaining all of the content previously stored on the site.

When we reached the build phase, we had decided on WordPress as the CMS of choice, so we could integrate a WooCommerce element for their shop, eLearning, and ticket sales. The solution neatly combined all three of these aspects into one combined checkout solution with a comprehensive shipping policy based on the Post Office’s world shipping zones, and cart weight.

Developing a custom theme with a number of bespoke blocks, allowing the band to easily manage the site without the need of a developer. This gave the band some branded block areas that they could add their own content without risk or causing problems on the front-end view of the site.Chris Tarry was commissioned to provide copywriting services throughout the project to make sure the brands identity and overall message stayed consistent.

The Results:

Since going live, the band have received glowing feedback on their new website from around the world. The sites new functionality is evident in their increased shop takings which have seen an incredible 9x improvement on average monthly sales through their website.