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By klausson on
Printed Art is a platform for photographers to display and sell their work as finished art, ready to hang on the wall. Photographers submit their artwork for the PrintedArt Collection to be reviewed by our curators. Once the curators approve a submission, an ubercart product node gets automatically generated and attached to the image node. Customers can then configure an image by choosing the size and material for their order.
In addition to the collection, PrintedArt is also offering printing services where customers upload their own images to be produced as artwork on aluminum dibond and acrylic. After the upload, images are automatically analyzed to determine the print sizes that can be offered based on the image resolution.
Why Drupal was chosen:
PrintedArt is an online collection of fine art photography that sells finished artwork to its customers. The artwork gets printed on gallery-grade display material, usually an aluminum dibond plate with an acrylic front for better display and durability.
When we planned the project we had take a number of factors into account that led us to the combination of Drupal and Ubercart as our platform of choice. The system had to take submissions from photographers and also allow them to make modifications to the items they own. It would need to have a full ordering system to process credit cards and a workflow system that allows us to dispatch work orders to our fulfillment center.
When evaluating the different platform choices, we had already done a thorough investigation into a number of competing platforms: On our short list of candidates were Joomla/Virtuemart, Alfresco, Magento and Drupal/Ubercart. The decision for Drupal was made in large part because of its module architecture that lends itself very well for a "gradual improvement" development strategy. It helped, of course, that our hosting provider was offering a fully supported Drupal installation that can be automatically upgraded using their control panel.
Technical specifications
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen:
The Image module and related packages are the obvious core of the PrintedArt business to help run the photography collection and automatically generate the various derivative formats for the images shown on the website.
Ubercart and its related "uc_*" modules were chosen to facilitate the e-commerce capabilities.
UC Node Checkout is a special case and was needed to allow customers to create an order from an uploaded image by attaching it to a generic base product.
CCK is needed since we are still running on Drupal 6 and it is the only way to create complex content formats.
Workflow along with uc_order_access and some custom code is crucial to facilitate proper routing of an order between everybody who participates in the production and shipping process.
Community contributions:
N/A
Team members:
Project team:
G Meredith Group - owns and operates PrintedArt.com and worked on the Drupal architecture, planned the rollout and implemented a large part of the features described above.
Eleks Design Studio - implemented 3rd-party API integrations, worked on custom Drupal modules for workflow management and eCommerce.
G Meredith Consulting - provided marketing strategy for the PrintedArt rollout.
Sectors:
Arts
E-Commerce
Publishing
Retail and Distribution
Small business
