A comprehensive website for custom print and promotional products
What started as a few tweaks to the site back in 2017 turned into a healthy, years long contract. After their only developer moved on from the company, I took the lead, maintaining, expanding, and improving the site over time. Utilizing a custom PHP framework, the site strikes a balance between design and function. Pages maintain a logical, visual order while coming together to boast a comprehensive catalog with over 40 pages of content.
Simple for Some
Web development is far more accessible and streamlined than it was years ago. Today, you can set up a website for free using website builders that don’t even require coding knowledge to use. Standardized elements take the form of modules that can be dragged and dropped onto a page. It’s all quite nice and may work perfectly for many, but it has it’s limitations when it comes to customization. Most take for granted the how particular the design and development process can be for wholly custom sites.
GoDaddy's website builder. A user interface allows for easily modifying content as well as adding or removing sections and elements.
Pixel Perfect
When you’re not in charge of your own design process, it’s important to be in the hands of a good designer, especially when that process is done remotely. Regardless of the scale of the changes being made, it’s important that the work is done down to the pixel. No exceptions were made with this project as detailed design specifications are provided with every update.
Specifications for a simple custom element.
Specifications for a more complex drop-down element. The 12 striped lines correspond to Bootstrap columns.
In With the New
Overtime the website has received a slew of updates, both big and small. Sometimes it’s simply changing copy and a few images, sometimes it’s a new custom element or two, and sometimes it’s entirely new pages and functionality.
The evolution of a mail tout element. An entirely new element is first created and then adjusted according to the designer's preferences.
A more comprehensive addition to the site involved adding a new 'Hub' element to each major category section, consolidating much of the content and expanding the site by more than 20 pages.
A mockup for a newly proposed 'Hub' element (left) that links to subcategories and its corresponding specification sheet (right).
A side by side comparison of the old and new landing page. Element arrangement of the side bar and the addition of a button at the bottom of the hub are also implemented.
While the creation of a hub gave the user better control of where to explore, they still could only reach it by navigating to the parent page first. The obvious solution was to expand the menu to include these options.
A side by side comparison illustrates how the old menu (left) only contains the parent page options while the new menu (right) features parent and subcategory options with an added image.
With over 25 years of industry knowledge and experience, The Answer Company has developed relationships with manufacturers around the country and garnered a huge catalog of printing and promotional products to offer to its clients. Their goal is to save businesses time, money, and headaches related to purchasing professionally printed materials.
Update: In 2023, after a long run, The Answer Company officially closed its doors and was redistributed to American Solutions for Business. Fortunately, the entire sales team stuck together and can be contacted there for any and all printing and promotional needs.