A networked Wordpress site (the system that used to be known as Wordpress MU).

This was quite a meaty project. The super admin for the site is able to spawn new sub-sites on subdomains for the Studios and Crafters that work in West Kilbride. This is achieved in only a few clicks - facilitated by a custom theme which massively reduces the admin overhead by automating much of the process when activated. The theme also catered for the sub-site users to choose their own skin, run their own blog, and manage their own galleries.

Click Craft Town Scotland to view the site.

A Wordpress site based on the designs of Leeds web designer Kris Howes Leeds web designer Kris Howes.

One of the points worth noting about this one would be the fact that the image based navigation is still driven through the Wordpress menu system. I customised Thickbox, following Kris' designs. The system uses featured images in combination with TimbThumb v2 to ensure that it's as easy as possible for Harrison to add new posts and pages. The contact form uses conditional logic and Javascript to ensure that, based on the intial decision, the rest of the contact form customises itself.

Click The Perceptionist - Harrison Richards to view the site.

A Wordpress site for a beauty therapist in Leeds. Nice and simple, based on the designs of Mark Savage at Handcart Media Ltd.

Interesting points about this one were that I decided to use CSS to rotate the headers through 90 degrees. I also did it on one page, the menu is dynamically generated, as are the in-page anchor links. The jQuery scroll is a plugin which I wrote to handle smooth scrolling between in-page anchors. Nice and easy to update, and the keyword count makes it a heavyweight landing page - a concentration of the SEO firepower rather than spreading it more thinly across multiple pages.

Click Beauty Treatment Leeds to view the site.

A Wordpress site for a travel agents. No online booking required, the site promotes and communicates the fact it is a niche agency focussed on top end customer service.

Lots of nice touches but the main point of interest from a development point of view was the creation of a reviews section. Nothing unusual in that, but these reviews allow the user to upload up to 4 images. Images are resized and optimised on upload, and the reviews are processed in hte same way as the Wordpress comments engine so that submissions can be moderated by the site administrators.

Click Travel Agent Ayrshire to view the site.

The McKenzie UK Consultancy site is another prime example of a situation where Wordpress can be used to deliver a really high quality end result on a slim budget. The consultancy are not just a not-for-profit organisation - they are in effect a 'not-for-turnover' organisation. They don't charge for their service, so value for money was crucial here.

A poor online brand image would undermine the quality of the service they provide though, so it was important to properly reflect their high standards. I think we did pretty well. A couple of days work produced a nice clean looking Wordpress site that's well optimised, and contains some well laid out and readable content that communicates their core values and service offerings.

Click McKenzie UK Consultancy to view the site.

A Wordpress site for a bar and restaurant, the legendary 'Muddy' from my home town - renovated, restored, re-invigorated and ready for business once again. And they are doing a really great job, so it was important for them to have a website that communicated that.

The site uses a Javascript backstretch technique that is integrated into the backend so that local images can be presented fullscreen as backdrops. There is an AJAX based menu system on the front end, a good way to present a large menu on a single page without the page ending up enormous. The feedback system allows users to submit a rating and message. They are processed through the Wordpress comments engine, so they can be approved and displayed, depending on the submission.

Click Traditional Family Bar & Restuarant to view the site.

Wordpress was a particularly good choice of platform for the Garfield's site because the tapas and daily specials need to be updated every day. I built a 'Dishes Database' based on custom post types that meant all of the potential menu dishes could be entered in and then dragged and dropped into the correct order, or toggled between 'draft' and 'published' depending on whether they were on the menu or not.

It also features a JQuery dropdown panel (click the Facebook and Twitter icons) that displays a feed of the latest twitter posts, links to the social media, and a section that allows the user to request an e-mail that contains a list of the daily specials. This has been protected with a Captcha to prevent spam.

Click Great Tapas in Ardrossan to view the site.

YMCA Scotland rebranded themselves to the more inclusive 'Y People', and needed a new website to reflect the changes and move the organisation on. The requirements meant that the best solution was a Joomla implementation for the main body of the site, and a Wordpress implementation for the blog.

Both systems were built using custom themes based on the designs of Niall Smillie at 0427 Design. The Joomla site contains a password protected section for registered users (200+ staff) which has access to a Docman documentation repository that holds all the organisation's shared files. The HR department has access to a recruitment system that enables them to post jobs and receive applications through the system.

Click Y People to view the site.

A brand new Magento build featuring a raft of nice features. Include a homepage Javascript image slider and jQuery Featured Products carousel. The homepage also features Sonos product videos streamed on a custom FLV player.

Extensions used in the site include the Aitoc Checkout which streamlines the checkout to remove the shipping address and shipping options section. I've also used ColorMage, an extension which allows for configurable product image switching. Another useful extension allows categories with 1 product to display the product page directly from main navigation anchors.

Click Sonos sound systems to view the site.

This was a rescue job on a Magento 1.3 site which had been poorly done. The previous agency had some nice design and content ideas, and had done an acceptable job of customising the Magento Modern theme. However, the SEO was absolutely appalling (all the content had been rendered as images), and there were a whole raft of useability mistakes that meant the site wasn't performing commercially.

All of the content was re-rendered using HTML and CSS. The home page was reconfigured for Featured Products. The taxation was set-up, and the images and product page layout redone. The default callouts were removed. Shipping was set up and the cart was customised to include the shipping cost at the cart stage. I also created user documentation for the client.

Click anti ageing skincare to view the site.