Since I have been asked...
If you want your own movie poster dedicated website (or any other sort of website) or want to upgrade your current one (like Dario did) then I will be happy to talk to you about it.
If you want a site with an online shop to sell your posters from (or any other product) here's one I built: www.vintagemovieposters.com.au and as it happens I am currently building another movie poster online shop for another movie poster dealer.As we know Dario's site is now up and running here:
www.vintagemovieart.ca and if you can't remember what the old site looked like, this was it:
http://bit.ly/SoNiUV I think we improved it
The project itself took about probably about a 4-5 weeks, but in terms of time allocated perhaps 40-50 hours...but then again I wasn't counting. I have enjoyed the project, Dario is a great client, a genuinely nice guy who offers a fabulous service and product and I believe this website will showcase those services as well as his portfolio much better now. Dario was also very generous with his time in my requests for info, photos etc and best of all Dario let me loose to come up with a design I felt would work for him and his business...of course he still had to approve it in the end and that can be a nerve wracking moment.
Here's
some of what we did:
1. Dario's site was built quietly on my testing server so Dario could view essentially what was a "live" website as we went along and we could make changes where necessary. For businesses this is particularly good as we can build the site while his old site remained active, thus he didn't have that (old school) "under construction" page.
2. We created the logo. Normally we don't do this as it really is a graphic designer's field, but Photoshop is a wonderful tool some days. We actually created two logos one for the website and then a variation for his Twitter site as the space is on Twitter is more restrictive.
3. We did a lot of Photoshopping of Dario's supplied (before and after) images, simply because we didn't need anything else to distract the view when one was in the galleries. All we did was 'cut' them out of the background and then adjusted the image so they were 'upright'. We did no colour boosting! However, we used the images as supplied when adding them to articles in the News section.
4. We streamlined the information process so people can now use the website to get all the necessary data needed to send a poster - the less time Dario spends doing emails the more time he has for restoration.
http://www.vintagemovieart.ca/vintage-movie-poster-restoration-prices-send-your-poster/5. We did the same for when people need to get a quote (they can do it all from his contact page) -
http://www.vintagemovieart.ca/contact-dario-casadei/.
6. To ensure he is 'social' we set Dario up with a Twitter account
https://twitter.com/vintagemovieart (he already had a Facebook page)...his website now automatically feeds his Twitter page whenever something is published to his website (including the comments).
7. The website is hosted on our server, this includes his email and we shifted everything from his old hosts in Canada to Australia.
8. The site has been carefully optimised for search engines, we would expect to see far better results than what he used to enjoy(?) over the next 2-3 months, it is worth noting search engine results are not instant nor guaranteed, anyone who promises otherwise is telling porkies.
To the members of the poster collecting community who were very speedy and generous in their support of Dario's new website by way of some wonderful testimonials, I should like to thank-you. Of course if more come in then we shall add them as we go along as will more 'Before and After' images to the Galleries and I am sure there is many more Restoration project articles to be posted over time!As part of the continued services we provide (we don't set and forget), we will keep a wary eye on things and be on call to help should Dario need it. Over the next month or so I will teach Dario how to edit the content of his own site (if you can type you can essentially edit), this way he will be able to make his own updates when he needs/wants to thus saving himself money (on web designer fees) but more importantly it means his site will stay current and relevant. Teach a man to fish...
We can provide hosting as part of the package and if you don't own your own domain name we sell domain names too; I am even happy enough just to give advice - generally that's free. At the end of the day you get attention and I'd like to think value for money.
I can build you a site for part Cash and part Trade, talk to me I am sure we can work a deal, it's a lot cheaper than you probably think and finally don't ever think distance is the issue, Dario is in Vancouver, I am in Sydney.
Drop me a line...
