When we started to design and build a site for Marchi Jewelry, this small storefront buidness was going through changes. John Marchiafava, the business owner, knew he wanted a site, he knew the industry was trending that way and he knew his business was beginning to take a different direction than he intended.
This project was not unlike doing a site for other small businesses. Copy and content were slow in surfacing. Budget and time were limited. What we tried to do was begin to present ideas and solutions to John. We made every effort to anticipate what he needed and make it so that he could make a few simple decisions so that we could continue to move forward. His business was moving away from straight retail and finding more success doing custom work. That created our new design direction. Problem was, we needed images.
This is where John stepped up. He hired a professional photographer to shot all of his custom work and his featured items. This was all we needed. We were then able to create a site out of his product and get out of the way. We were also able to get John to agree to a fully featured e-commerce component to the site. This was huge. While it is unlikely that a customer will make a big ticket purchase like this online, it helped put Marchi on the map and established him as a player in this marketplace. It also gave potential customers the information they needed to make the trip into the shop.
For the design, once we had the images to work with, we just tried to let the images provide the color and personality for the site. The shop page and the static pages provide a convincing brochure that John can leverage for a long time. Until the next refresh of course 😉
