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Here are a few examples of our past and current work to give you a snapshot of what Acorn Heads can do for you. This is not a complete listing of all our projects – please visit our Services page or contact us for more detailed information about what we offer.
Indiewave
Musicians around the world use Indiewave to promote themselves and their music, and Acorn Heads provided all of the programming expertise, web server configuration, and security to make it happen!
Visitors to Indiewave can view artist's biographical information, listen to songs via streaming audio, find out when a band is playing live, and sign up for the artist's mailing list. The most popular artists are tracked by the Charts page which lists the most active Indiewave Artists in order.
Artists can upload images, audio files, edit biographies and link lists, and manage their accounts with a web interface. Indiewave also provides artists with a shopping cart where they can sell their music and other merchandise via the artist's own PayPal account.
Indiewave site adminitrators also needed solutions to such issues as managing Artist accounts, logging and tracking site and customer problems, and addressing intellectual property rights issues vis-a-vis the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Acorn Heads built all of the functionality, content, and strategic partnerships for this web property from the ground up. Then we built a custom configured web server that we administer and for which we provide electronic security. All of Indiewave's varied functionality was created via a battery of web pages and reusable library routines implemented with Active Server Pages (ASP), 4 relational databases, XML, XSLT, Windows Media Server, etc. Logo and graphics by long time collaborator and excellent graphic artist Sue Payne. |
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Robb Hirsch Photography
Robb Hirsch is a talented nature photographer whose work is featured in the prestigious Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite National Park. He wanted a professional web site with a simple and elegant design to highlight and promote his photography business.
We worked closely with Robb to identify and understand the needs of his customers, which is the first and most important step in creating an effective web site. The design is kept simple and elegant to direct the visitor's attention to his photos. The use of granite as a background echoes Robb's natural subject matter, with the overall effect giving the impression of a stately museum, the subtle tones supporting, rather than distracting from, his powerful images.
We designed the photo purchasing pages to be extremely visual and interactive, and give the customer a sense of the experience of purchasing a fine art photograph from a prestigious gallery. Care was taken to highlight the quality of the materials.
We also provided Robb with an administration area where he can maintain many important aspects of his web site himself, with little knowledge of HTML or web development, including updating page text, how images are displayed during the purchasing process, and details of his e-commerce gateway.
On-going improvements include a content management area where Robb can manage his own links, and photo gallery details. |
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Stacy Polson's Tapestries
Stacy needed a web site to promote and sell her needle felt artwork. Being a visual artist, she already had a distinct idea of the clear, simple layout she wanted to highlight her colorful creations. She asked us to implement her vision, and suggest ideas as to the specifics of how her gallery would look and function.
We were able to suggest an existing Flash-based photo album product that we felt would integrate well with her layout. We quickly worked out the details and implemented what you see today on her site.
The use of an existing product for her gallery greatly sped up development time and reduced cost for Stacy. This can be an excellent strategy for many web sites, as existing “widgets” are fully developed and well tested… and some are even free! The code is normally maintained by the company which develops the “widget,” allowing you to keep your site up-to-date while reducing your costs to that of the widget upgrade itself (if any), and the development time to install the upgrade. This is often much less expensive than developing and maintaining your own code. |
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Miss Karen's Productions
Here is a clean and simple design which spotlights the extensive use of video on this business-to-business website.
We built this site from the ground up completely around the client's logo, utilizing it in several different ways while also adding complimentary colors and graphics. We digitally manipulated the video clips in Adobe Premier and optimized them to use the least amount of bandwidth while still delivering great quality to Miss Karen's visitors.
Every element was checked and double-checked with the client to ensure that it was exactly what she wanted before proceeding with the next phase of design or programming.
Some pages are still in development with the client, such as the Articles page, which will feature an automated system for uploading new articles and archiving older ones easily and smoothly. |
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Puppet Show
Designed to promote the progressive rock band Puppet Show, the intent was to create a small, easy to maintain site with simple navigation. The resulting design is relatively understated, with occasional splashes of color.
Another consideration was the desire to be able to re-theme the site as the band released new albums. To this end, the look and feel of the site is largely defined by the color sheme and the prominent title graphic at the top of the page. These elements can be easily updated to match the band's current release and keep the site contemporary with the band's activities.
The function of the introduction page is largely to attract the attention of visitors with a variety of news snippets and product teasers, directing the visitor to the appropriate detail pages within the site. Because of this, the site can be largely kept up to date by updating juat a few pages at a time. |
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Homesteading TV
Intended to reach out to both advertisers and viewers, the look and feel of the Homesteading TV website is as important as the content. Simple navigation and concise information are combined with a dramatic color scheme designed to highlight the natural beauty of the masthead image.
This site is a work in progress, and what you see here is indicative of a late-stage client mockup. A design at this stage has been presented to the client, whose feedback has been used to refine the design.
The next stage in developing this web property would be to translate the design seen here into a set of actual web pages on a staging server where all parties have access to the site as work is completed. Textual content needs to be finalized for all pages, as well as securing and optomizing all additional graphical content.
This is all part of the client-oriented development process adopted by Acorn Heads. As ideas are translated into "living and breathing" web sites, good ideas are recognized and reinforced, while any problems areas are flushed out and replaced with more suitable alternatives. |
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Willow's Place
This site caters to both interested readers of an author’s books and to customers of a related full-service web store. An organic, hand-made feeling is important based on the types of books and products featured, and many visitors have said that they feel relaxed, calm and comfortable here.
The web store is entirely driven by a server-side database that was custom designed. New products are easily added to the templated store by accessing a simple web form. Many features, such as sale graphics, are automatically generated with the click of a button. A daily customer log tracks each visitor, how they arrived at the site and what products they looked at, which makes it easy to check on ad performance and identify product trends.
Other areas of the site automatically update according to the month, drawing from an archive of information that is simple to add, change or delete. The entire site, including all graphics and functionality, was created from scratch by Acorn Heads. |
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