New Website Launching!

If you'd like to see what has been consuming so much of my time recently, check out www.CustomHeadrestCovers.com. The embroidery shop I work at has recently launched this site so you can personalize your car's headrests. Our catalog only has names, initials, and monograms right now, but we'll be continually adding more items as we get things fully up and running. One of the biggest features, though, is that we also do custom orders. Send us a graphic or logo and we can get it converted to something we can sew on.

I was the sole developer on this site, and I think it was a great way for me to get my feet wet with site design. It's built using GoDaddy's WebsiteTonite toolkit based off of a standard template, but I've done a ton of customization to steer away from that cheap, pre-built feel. I added a lot of custom CSS to tweak the existing layout elements, as well as creating some of our own. I'm proudest of the thread color table on the Product Information page. I created a whole container/table class system that lets me add new color blocks without having to upload swatch images like I was afraid I was going to have to. I also created new banner images for the site and store headers, plus the SHOP NOW! banner. I took all of the photos for the header/banners. My dad and my boss took the majority of the shots in the Photo Gallery, though I have done significant cleanup and re-touching to them to try to unify their look and feel.

On the tools and technical side, I discovered the amazing Firebug plugin for Firefox while I was trying to work out all the CSS structure for the pre-made code. It's a great tool to find your way through the code, plus you can edit the code live and see the changes on the page in real time!