Alpha Multimedia Solutions

Pistils Nursery is more than just sprouts, seeds, and soil, it’s a meeting place for those who are passionate about horticulture, urban gardening, and home-grown agriculture. They were looking to build a website without the aid of a web developer, and they wanted to be sure they could make updates to the site easily and quickly. Their main concern was to reorganize the existing content in a way that would allow them to maintain a vibrant website as they cultivated their business.

Alpha worked with Pistils to design a Wordpress-based content management system (CMS) that would meet their needs. The main challenge we faced with was streamlining a website that was heavily inundated with graphics. It was imperative to make the site functional, not just visually stunning. We took special consideration to preserve the specific font treatments that were specific to Pistils, and we used SiFR technology that would load the font using a Flash platform with pixel-perfect implementation. Using the Wordpress framework, we created search engine friendly URLs, enabled a SEO Meta Plugin, and made sure that Pistils would continue to rank well as their content ideas flourished.

What was the biggest challenge your team faced during the project?
The challenges included converting a graphic rich design into a functional web site. Special consideration had to be given to the specific font treatments that the client was resolute on keeping. To preserve the font treatments, Alpha used SiFR technology that would load the font using Flash. It is a wonderful design, and we were commited to deliver a pixel perfect implementation.

How did Search Engine Optimization influence your design and application architecture?
We were certainly mindful of SEO despite not having a hard requirement to do so. The information architecture and content analysis considered how it could be done within the Wordpress framework. This included creating search engine friendly URLs and enabling the SEO Meta Plugin. The strength of the site is in it’s content – the team at Pistils is determined to rank well and there is no shortage of content ideas.