The 1940s Society

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About The 1940′s Society

The 1940s Society web site has been put together because of the founder having an interest in the 1940′s and who is keen to share that interest with others. They know that many like-minded people come and visit the site and have enjoyed it. Many more of those finding this site are students who are researching aspects of the war years. The owners hope that their visitors find what they are looking for and take a little time to remember the hardships and sacrifice experienced by those that lived through the war years.

The web site is an amalgamated ecommerce memorabilia site as well as an information portal. The ecommerce site offers a number of 1940s products such as Books, CD’s, DVD’s and Reproduction Posters that customers can browse/purchase online via WorldPay. The site also contains a variety of reviews, sound clips, real war recollection interviews as well as an events calendar for all 1940 related events that are organised throughout the year.

Our client’s main objective for the web site is that the 1940′s should not be forgotten. The memories of those that lived through this period of our history should be written down and preserved for future generations.

Project Detail

Following an internal marketing email campaign The 1940s Society contacted Centurius with a view to redesigning and redeveloping their existing online web site within the latest version of the Actinic Business ecommerce (v11). The client’s early website consisted of two independent websites, the first being a static HTML information web site and the second the Actinic V11 ecommerce online society shop.

From initial telephone meetings with the client Centurius formulated a recommendations document for the client outlining creative design points, layout suggestions as well as possible plugins to enhance the site once live. As this product offering related to a particular era we created a number of flat visuals for the client to give clear representation of how we envisaged the site to look, which included their brand, corporate colours as well as product photography. One of the important requirements from the client was being able to have everything ‘under one roof’ for content management purposes, therefore an amalgamation of both sites was essential.

From a design perspective we wanted to pull out all the stops so that any visitors got a real feeling of the time period the site needed to portray, whilst still giving clear objectives with the sites main function for product purchasing. Our idea then lead to an aged WWII telegraph background with our site functionality displayed in and around the template.

From design sign-off Centurius worked with the clients existing snapshot, integrating our template and customising the layout templates. The main homepage was designed to allow for a large jQuery advertisement rotator with three supporting mini advertisements underneath. The left hand links used a pre-built Actinic navigation system, however we needed to hide links/parts of the web site with the aid of customised variables.

Once the templates had all been created then Centurius went about amalgamating the content into the ecommerce software. This was achieved using a number of customised fragment layouts alongside the use of customised variables which allowed for areas to show or hide depending on the information inputted into the system. An attractive gallery plug-in was integrated into the system to allow the visitor to flick quickly and easily back and forth through the photography that is inputted within the Actinic system.

A number of external plug-ins were integrated into the site to entice the customer into purchasing products, such as an ability to easy add a YouTube video to a product by simply entering the YouTube generated embed code. When clicked the video appears over the top of the site. As well as this Centurius also integrated an online radio widget into the catalogue, which when clicked played a UK 1940s Radio Station in the background for supporting ambience.

Testimonials

“Working with Centurius was an easy and enjoyable experience. The 1940s website needed a complete redesign and Centurius looked at what we had, listened to our requirements, came up with additional ideas, and produced a ‘cracking’ site. Centurius worked with as to produce a site that exceeded our expectations. We were particularly pleased with the integration of our information pages with our store pages and have been handed a site that can be expanded with additional content and features when we require them. Centurius were extremely helpful throughout the process and continue to provide support should we have any problems or queries. Our website is one of our most important areas in which to communicate with our customers. Its our ‘shop window’ and we are delighted to have had Centurius on board with us.”

Ian Bayley – Director
The 1940′s Society

Get in touch…

Address:
Lencett House, 45 Boroughgate,
Otley, Leeds, West Yorkshire,
Leeds, LS21 1AG

Tel: 0113 350 4095
Email: info@centurius.co.uk

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