Jim Barraud

The latest project to launch at the Hive is the online presence for Homedics. Homedics sells as an extensive line of personal health and wellness products. You may have seen some of their commercials on TV lately.

Media-Hive was tasked with the visual design of their new website/eStore and integrating that design into the ATG Commerce OnDemand platform. My comrades at the Hive did an excellent job with both the visual design and the implementation of that design into the platform. I had a minor role in the beginning of the visual design process with presenting one of several design directions. While it wasn’t picked for further refinement, you can view my original design direction below.

This weekend I launched my latest freelance project. A website redesign for a local day spa, Simply Skin. The redesign included a complete information architecture and aesthetic makeover.

The goals of the project that were achieved are:

• Improved Information Architecture - The navigation of the new site is simpler then the previous. The top level navigation decreased from 8 items to 6 due to the consolidation of navigation items that were similar in nature. I’ve also employed the use a of “fat bottom” footer that contains useful information, such as spa hours, regardless of where you are on the site.
• More Modern Aesthetics - The aesthetics of the previous site had a predominantly feminine feel using various shades of pinks as the color palette. One of the main aesthetic goals for the new site was to make a more male friendly. This actually tied in with the other main aesthetic goal of the site, to make it more in tune with the recent renovation at the spa. This resulted in eliminating the pink and introducing beach cottage colors that tie into the new feel of the Spa.
• Addition of a Content Management System - It was important for the employees of the spa to have the capability to update the site with new services, prices, and products as the need arose. For this, the site has been built upon the Wordpress content management system. The flexibility of the Wordpress architecture and extendibility of it via the various plugins available made it possible to make every bit of content easily manageable.
• Adding the Simply Skin Product Line for Online Purchase - The previous site offered it’s clients the ability to purchase spa gift cards online. With the redesign, we took that concept a step further by offering Simply Skin’s own line of spa products for purchase online.

My role in the project was that of a one man band. Design, Development, Wordpress Integration, Paypal Integration, Project Management & Photography (for Spa Orientation & Spa Tour).

The site can viewed at http://simplysdayspa.com

Our latest project at Media-Hive has just launched; the website for Diane von Furstenberg. Our role, more specifically for the Hive, was the eStore portion of the website. The eStore is built upon ATG’s Commerce onDemand platform (of which we are an implementation partner). Our task was to implement a new design, created by Sweden Unlimited (who also created the marketing side of the website) into the Commerce onDemand platform. We were integral in creating the base Commerce onDemand HTML/CSS framework so it was a natural fit for us to implement the new DVF design into the platform. My personal role was the HTML/CSS integration of the new design as well as the Scene7 integration which allows for product image zooming and alternate view display.

Created for the Kenyon Chapter of the National Association for the Education for Young Children, the site aims to provide it’s existing members with news and information on chapter happenings. The site also provides potential members with information about the chapter and how to join.

The original site was severely dated and very time consuming to update. The goals of the new site were for the design to be clean and for it to be easy to update by it’s board members. For this, I utilized the Wordpress content management system. This has allowed the Kenyon Chapter board members to easily update the content of the site, add new content, and add new pages themselves.

The site can be viewed here: http://kenyonchapter.com.

Screenshots are archived here