Category: Website Projects
Posted by John Sundberg in Website Projects Saturday, 29 May 2010 View Comments
Our latest project at Black Hills Web Works is a new website for Parkview Evangelical Free Church in Rapid City, South Dakota. Parkview recently changed the name of their church and moved into a brand new building, and the new website was timed, more or less, to coincide with these significant changes.
The Parkview website, www.parkviewefc.org, is powered by the Joomla CMS (Content Management System) and was built using the Crystalline template from RocketTheme. Crystalline is built on the Gantry Framework and I have to say that I am impressed with the flexibility and power of this framework for building websites.
Posted by John Sundberg in Website Projects Thursday, 18 February 2010 View Comments
Our latest website/blog project is ‘A Heart for Justice.’ This website was built for an individual who is planning to use the site and the blog to spread awareness about modern-day slavery and human trafficking, and provide links to resources to help people and churches become better informed about and more involved in this great cause. Perhaps I should have said “individuals” — my wife is the blogger and I’ll be handling the website updates.
A little history
My wife started blogging on this topic in November of 2009, using a free blog hosted at WordPress.com. I had suggested building a website to go along with the blog, and she finally agreed to that last month, though it wasn’t until two weeks ago that she picked out a Joomla template and a WordPress theme to go along with it. As it turns out, her choice was the Affinity Joomla template and matching WordPress theme from RocketTheme, one of my personal favorites.
Joomla and WordPress combined
We originally planned on building both the website and blog from the same WordPress theme, but we finally concluded that WordPress was going to be too limiting for some of the features and layout options we wanted to have in the website, so we then brought Joomla into the project. Still, WordPress can’t be beat for blogging, and RocketTheme helped us out by having both the template and theme available. Combining the two platforms can get a little confusing sometimes when you’re customizing the design, but it’s certainly doable.
Posted by John Sundberg in Marketing and Social Networking, Website Projects Saturday, 26 December 2009 View Comments
The latest project completed at Black Hills Web Works is a new website for Legends and Legacies, a local furniture and accessory retailer in Spearfish, SD.
According to their website Legends and Legacies specializes in “custom, one-of-a-kind furniture and accessory pieces, ranging from handcrafted log furniture, custom sofas and chairs, dining sets and bedroom ensembles to complementary accessories such as rugs, Native American art and wildlife prints, candles, pottery and lush throws.”
A virtual showcase for products
The primary purpose of their website is to showcase the unique and beautiful products they sell. This was accomplished in several ways.
The front or home page (see the above screenshot) has three separate slideshows that automatically rotate through a random selection of photos. With sixty photos to choose from, the variety of potential combinations helps to ensure that the content will stay “fresh” well into the future.
The product showcase is divided into four areas — living room, dining room, bedroom, and accessories — and each area uses “pop-up” photo galleries to allow clients to browse through the wide variety of furniture and accessory pieces and collections available at Legends and Legacies.
Additionally, the website features an interactive, embedded Google map for directions to the store, a welcome letter from owner and founder Janet Frame, and a contact form.
Social Media and other details
In today’s world social media can be important to the success of any business, and we’ve set-up a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page for Legends and Legacies, and registered them with the Google Local Business Center. In the near future we’ll be showing them how to use Twitter and Facebook to start making connections with clients, friends, and others in their community and around the world.
The website is powered by the latest version of Joomla!, a Content Management System (CMS), and is based on the Infuse template from RocketTheme.
The website can be found at www.legendsandlegaciesllc.com.
Posted by John Sundberg in Website Projects Saturday, 21 November 2009 View Comments
The new “external” website built by Black Hills Web Works for Cloud Peak Energy was launched on Friday, November 20, 2009. Cloud Peak Energy, based in Gillette, WY, is the third largest coal producer in the U.S., and they went public on the NYSE on November 20, 2009.
Their new website went “live” on the same day, and is a key tool for telling investors about the company. The website features a variety of content, “lightbox” slideshows, downloadable files, Press Releases in a blog format, and Investor Relations content served up by Thomson Reuters through the use of iframe wrappers.
The new website is designed to be a point-of-contact between Cloud Peak Energy and potential investors, employees, vendors, and other interested parties. An abundance of content has been made available in a variety of key areas to communicate a great deal about the company.
Some of the features of the website include:
- “lightbox” slideshows with photos of their mining operations
- downloadable files for potential employees and vendors
- Press Releases displayed in a blog format
- Investor Relations content served up by Thomson Reuters through the use of iframe wrappers
The website is powered by the latest version of Joomla!, a Content Management System, and is based on the Terran Tribune template from RocketTheme.
The website can be found at www.cloudpeakenergy.com
Posted by John Sundberg in Website Projects Wednesday, 14 October 2009 View Comments
The new “donor” website for the Bella Pregnancy Resource Center in Spearfish, SD has been launched and is already being put to work. According to their mission statement, “Bella is an interdenominational Christ centered ministry committed to upholding the sanctity of human life, promoting sexual integrity, and presenting the Gospel of the Lord in word and deed.”
The new website is designed to assist them in their mission in several ways:
- by making information about Bella readily available to their donors, potential donors, and other interested people
- by being a highly visible place to make announcements about upcoming events
- and by providing a convenient way for donors to donate online using Paypal
Some of the features of the website include:
- an integrated blog that allows key staff to relay and publish current news, information, and event announcements
- embedded videos that help to promote Bella’s mission
- an embedded Google calendar for displaying upcoming events
- current and archived copies of their newsletters in PDF format
- and an embedded Google map for visual directions to their location
The website is powered by the latest version of Joomla!, a Content Management System, and is based on the Nexus template from RocketTheme.
The website can be found at www.bellapartners.org
