During the past few years, we've seen first-hand how many designers struggle with the essentials of web technology. In response, we've put together three online courses that give designers what we've found to be the essential background for building modern websites.
As Foley Family Wines has grown to encompass 34 brands, the sheer amount of marketing collateral became hard to manage. Working with designer Ginny Laughlin of Athena Design Group, Webvanta built a custom site that provides easy access to thousands of pieces of marketing collateral for the salespeople, distributors, and retailers of all these brands.
During the course of 2011, mobile-optimized sites have gone from being a rarity to becoming a standard part of what we do. Last fall, we began using jQuery Mobile, and we're now using for most of our new sites.
Open-source software has made an enormous impact on the web. From operating systems to database software, open-source software has been a driving force behind the growth of the web. Despite all the benefits of open-source software, however, its advocates often underestimate its costs and fail to recognize the value of alternatives. For many applications, SaaS solutions—which typically are built upon an open-source foundation but include a substantial layer of proprietary software—better meet users' needs.
We recently launched the first large-scale use of our multiple mini-site feature for Payless Shoe Source, providing 16 mini-sites covering 11 countries in Latin America. Each of the sites is customized for the particular country but draws from a shared database of images, store locations, designer information, and standard pages such as the privacy policy.
We recently worked with designer and project manager Tyler Wantulok to build a deal-of-the-day site, EponME, initially serving the Bozeman, Montana area. By leveraging three existing hosted systems—Webvanta, Foxycart, and MailChimp—Tyler was able to deliver his clients a very effective, custom deal-of-the-day site for a fraction of what a custom web app would have cost.
Santa Rosa's Thai Taste restaurant recently launched a new website, built on the Webvanta Restaurant System. With a desktop site, mobile site, online ordering, and Facebook integration, the system is already bringing new business to the restaurant.
We've recently added a new capability to the Webvanta platform, which we call mini-sites.
We recently launched a site for Palo-Alto-based jewelry store, De Novo Fine Contemporary Jewelry that uses a highly customized Foxycart implementation to meet the owners' design requirements.
Unless you've been hiding under the proverbial rock, it's no surprise that the mobile web has exploded in the past year. It's a huge shift in the Internet landscape, and it changes the rules in a variety of ways. We've put together a webinar to share some of our experiences creating mobile and table websites and apps. Our goal is to help designers create multi-platform solutions, making the best of phones, tablets, and computers.