I have noticed the lack of vintage clothing shops with websites, especially in Nottingham. In fact none of the Nottingham based vintage clothing shops have an online presence and rely on feedback websites such as trustedplaces.com for advertisement. Cow, who are Wild Clothing's main competitor, have been in the process getting a website up and running since they opened. With this in mind I think Wild Clothing could benefit a lot especially as their main target audience spend a lot of their time online.
Beyond Retro are a vintage clothing brand from Sweden. Their website incorporates sound and flash animation in a novel and stylish way. Although the first few pages are flash, they have alternative HTML versions and the rest of the site is HTML. This is done very smoothly and is a simple way of getting round all the issues that effect your SEO ranking.
Since I came across Nevo's portfolio website, I have wanted to incorporate sound on a website. From both websites it seems best used in small doses and used effectively it can prolong interest, increasing time spent on site.
Live Client: Influencial Websites
Live Client: Meeting2
The Nottingham based vintage clothing shops Wild and Wilder currently have no online presence. I approached the owner regarding creating a website to promote the established brand. My proposal was successful and so Wild Clothing are my Client for the Live Project which will run over the second and third terms.
In our second meeting we discussed possible domain names, hosting, CMS and also threw a few design ideas about to achieve an understanding of what could work.
From this meeting the target audience was identified as 12-25year olds with a large %age being students, and the main aims for the website where addressed:
Robin is a busy businessman who wants an easy to manage and low maintenance website which informs the user of their products and each shops details (opening times, location etc). It also must be easy to navigate and use the existing branding (logo, colours, fonts etc).
It was mentioned there was some confusion among customers, who thought wild and wilder were in competition. Therefore it is neccessary that the website should clarify that both shops were of the same brand and ownership.
The website should also identify the heritage of the shop-as it is the oldest vintage clothing shop in the city centre-and also promote the new clothing lines as well as the second-hand and customised items on sale.
It was mentioned that Wild Clothing had tried creating a group on Facebook. This was however unsuccessful and from their experiences, would prefer not to use it or similar technologies again.
The one off nature of Wild Clothing's products, mean that an online shop is not a viable option for the company, as the effort and time needed, would far out-way the profit gained. However without some form of functionality, it will simply act as a brochureware website. As this is my final piece for my degree I would like to push the boundaries slightly so I am going to present a few ideas to Robin at January's meeting along with some developed design and layout ideas.