Case Study: Web Entertainment Guide

Web Entertainment Guide (WEG) is your source for all the best in original online programming .The idea for the website was developed by a fan for fans of web series who felt that there needed to be a place where web consumers could easily find and access original shows online without having to spend hours searching.

The Team

Company: Schipul - The Web Marketing Company
 
Project Manager: Albert Hughes
 
Design: Brandi Lalanne
 
Build: David Stagg
 
SEO/PHP Developer: John-Michael Oswalt (JMO)
 
Timeframe: 90 days
 

The Dream

The concept was the "Dream Site" of film and web enthusiast, Michelle Mower. Michelle came to Schipul The Web Marketing Company wanting the following

• A browse able catalog of Web Series with each Web Series having it's own unique page
• The ability to post news related to the world of Online Entertainment
• The ability to post interviews of individuals involved in Online Entertainment
• The ability to have multiple people blogging about Online Entertainment
• A way to display ads

This was Schipul's first Full Design Drupal website and we learned a lot, had a great time and ended up with a pretty good looking, functional website that our client was very pleased with.

A few Drupal Modules we used

• CCK - used to create custom content types for Web Series, Interviews, News, Featured items, and the Spotlight Clip area on home page

• Views - Created multiple views for the main content types (news, interviews, blogs, web series) such as blocks for the home page and a list view for the content type landing pages.

• Embedded Media Field - Used in the Web Series content Type and allows the easy embed of videos from various Video Sharing sites such as YouTube, Vimeo and Hulu

• File Filed,Image Field,Image Cache, Image API - Used in all of our content types and allows contributors of the site to upload images of any size and have them resized and positioned in a uniform way

• Nice menus - Created our drop down menus

• Path Auto - Used to automatically create search engine friendly urls based on content type and title

• Facebook Connect

• Blocks 404
  

Theming

The layout was designed by @brandius and we started off with the Drupal Contributed theme, Clean.

For our home page we created a custom home page template (page-front.tpl.php) and for each content type we created a custom node template (node-contenttype.tpl.php)to give us the look and feel that we desired.
The rotator on the home page was built using Tabs, Views, CCK and some jQuery

Resources

• We received a lot of help form the Drupal Handbooks
• Lullabot Podcasts
• Lyndia.com
• Good Ole Fashion Trial and Error

Conclusion

Thanks to Drupal's flexibility and its strong online community we were able to create a fully functional, highly customized website that fit all of the needs of our client.

We also created a list of  Drupal Modules and common terms as well as a Drupal Music Video for you to enjoy!