our latest website, Artist Residence Hotel and Art Gallery
Background
We have worked with Justin from Artist Residence for quite a while now. We did some theming for his website which was accomplished using Drupal 5x.
We were really keen to work with him and his Hotel and Art Gallery project and we proposed recently an update to the new 6x core of Drupal, as well as updating the theme and some of the old contributed modules. The following is the result of our update to the Artist Residence Hotel and Art Gallery website.
Requirements
- Clear, modern, attractive design
- Easier user/admin interface
- Scalable to other mini-sites
- Better social network integration
- Better performance in search engines
Goals
The main goal was to update the previous look of the website. The client wanted a better performance of the site on search engines and more conversions from the site. Also they were opening another branch of the business. The client wanted to set a mini-site for the new opening.
Design
We used a customised version of the 960 grid system to create the layout. The colour palette was the product of communication with the client. We used white and clear greys with bright purple and green. A new version of their logo was also created for the project.
Development
We have used the latest version of Drupal 6 for the development of this project. Below is a list of the contributed modules used for the project:
- CCK
- Views 2
- FCKeditor
- Pathauto
- Imagecache
- Webform
- Custom Breadcrumbs
- Jquery modules (plugin, ui, update)
- SEO modules (xmlsitemap, content optimizer, meta-tags, page-title, field indexer, Search 404, Seo Checklist)
- SUY
Optimisation
Accounts for both Analytics and Webmaster have been set up. The initial content that the client has submitted under our guidelines is now being reviewed and monitored. We will send them a report on how well the site is performing and tips to improve their conversions. A site map has been submitted and the content of the website is now being indexed by Google as we type this entry.
More news on this website coming soon…
it's my first post in the showcase...
Does anyone know how to publish images here? I could post some snapshots...
30 people has seen it...
No one has post a comment!
Any feedback would be very nice. We believe that this is our finest moment with Drupal, what you think?
Well done!
I really like the design because is pretty and is one of the cleanest Drupal web site I have seen in a long time.
Are you using a contributed modules for the slide shows?
Thanks...
We have used jQuery cycle plugin (http://jquery.malsup.com/cycle/) extensively though the website. We have seen a few modules that do slideshows and else but we didn't like the results so we went customising nodes and pages on the templates to achieve the slideshow animations. The slideshows could be further optimised in the next iterations of the website.
Thanks for your comment!
nice website
do you need a Google account for the SEO modules? Is that free?
how have you done the black
how have you done the black hover boxes in the menu??
"go to our homepage"
"visit our rooms"
etc
Thanks for your comment...
We are using the jtooltips module, http://drupal.org/project/jtooltips. We have done a little bit of customisation using the available template for the theme and slightly modifying the border-radius property.
Thanks for your feedback, I am glad you liked it!
nice site
Nice site. It was noticeable that in some places you used caps on headings and in others no caps. This was a little jarring, unless it was by design.
Other than that, the tooltips are nice, but are quickly overridden by Safari's own tooltips. Maybe this can be disabled css. I leave them on in safari because, even though they are annoying in some places, I have a use for them in other places.
www.fromoutoftheblue.com
Thanks for your comment...
Yes, we have noticed too. We have only created the platform/website, all the content that you see is user generated by the hotel managers. We have been in contact with them and we are working to bring the content to the best quality possible.
As you can see if you visit the website again, www.artistresidence.co.uk, we have just published a new update with adds a couple of mini-sites for a new hotel and the community area. The website is in full development therefore some of the content might still be in need of a review.
Thanks again for your feedback, we hope you like our designs...
thanks so much for useful
thanks so much for useful info
rotating jpgs? home page
very nice site
i am new to drupal
how do you do the rotating Jpg's on the home page?
this makes for a soper duper non flash presentation
I like it!
many thanks
Iggy
jcycle plugin did this...
All the animations are achieved using the jquery cycle plugin, it was very easy to set up.
WE have gone a long way since this website, I suppose this is a learning path. We can wait to present our latest website, it will be here soon!!
Thanks for all the comments!
Good Looking site
I like the look of the site. Love the tooltips and the rotating images on the home page.
Noticed this error on the Gallery Page:
user warning: Column 'nid' in field list is ambiguous query: SELECT nid AS nid, node.type AS node_type, node.vid AS node_vid, node.title AS node_title, node.created AS node_created, term_data.name AS term_data_name, term_data.vid AS term_data_vid, term_data.tid AS term_data_tid, DATE_FORMAT((FROM_UNIXTIME(node.created) + INTERVAL 3600 SECOND), '%Y%m%d%H%i') AS node_created_minute FROM node node LEFT JOIN term_node term_node ON node.vid = term_node.vid LEFT JOIN term_data term_data ON term_node.tid = term_data.tid INNER JOIN node_access na ON na.nid = node.nid WHERE (na.grant_view >= 1 AND ((na.gid = 0 AND na.realm = 'all') OR (na.gid = 0 AND na.realm = 'content_access_author') OR (na.gid = 1 AND na.realm = 'content_access_rid'))) AND ( (node.status <> 0 OR (node.uid = 0 AND 0 <> 0) OR 0 = 1) AND (node.type in ('story')) )ORDER BY node_created_minute DESC LIMIT 0, 18 in /homepages/32/d262649662/htdocs/ar003/sites/all/modules/views/includes/view.inc on line 755.
Thanks for your comment...
As we mentioned before, we don't maintain we website content. We haven't noticed any errors although there might have been some outside our watch.
Thanks for the feedback, we can wait to show our latest design/development using Drupal, Ubercart and a bunch of awesome contributed modules, thanks Drupal!!!