Blitzen Trapper
In the summer of 2010 Blitzen Trapper was about to release their fifth album, and their website was long-overdue for a refresh. Also, their previous hosting hadn't included database access, severely limiting how much we could we do with it.
With the new site, I started from scratch, writing everything in Ruby on Rails, and hosting it on Heroku. Albums, users, songs, shows, and forum topics all became their own models, allowing for a much deeper experience across the site. Users have central accounts that they can use to post in the forum, comment on shows, and even add and edit setlists. Users can also log in with Facebook if they prefer. Tour dates and ticket links are automatically updated via the Bandsintown API and Sub Pop's handy RSS feeds.
I strove for a simple, highly usable design that puts the focus where it should be: on the band and their fans. I used the just-launched Google Font Directory to incorporate the awesomely-named Vollkorn webfont for all headings, and incorporated subtle shades of red, black, grey, and tan to match the new album's artwork. Commerce is handled via Topspin, and images are served via Amazon's Cloudfront CDN.
Skills: Design, Ruby on Rails, Custom CMS, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Ecommerce, Amazon AWS, API Integration
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With the new site, I started from scratch, writing everything in Ruby on Rails, and hosting it on Heroku. Albums, users, songs, shows, and forum topics all became their own models, allowing for a much deeper experience across the site. Users have central accounts that they can use to post in the forum, comment on shows, and even add and edit setlists. Users can also log in with Facebook if they prefer. Tour dates and ticket links are automatically updated via the Bandsintown API and Sub Pop's handy RSS feeds.
I strove for a simple, highly usable design that puts the focus where it should be: on the band and their fans. I used the just-launched Google Font Directory to incorporate the awesomely-named Vollkorn webfont for all headings, and incorporated subtle shades of red, black, grey, and tan to match the new album's artwork. Commerce is handled via Topspin, and images are served via Amazon's Cloudfront CDN.
Skills: Design, Ruby on Rails, Custom CMS, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Ecommerce, Amazon AWS, API Integration
Visit Site