Introduction
Obviously we're not trying to completely republish entire web sites in this small section. Some of these projects turned out to be quite large in scope, and seeing what all these current and former clients had to offer didn't motivate you to visit us today. We intend this section, therefore, to be yet another type of "overview" of differing approaches that we have deployed.
We should note that particularly in the "movies" exhibited below, we generally worked with Art Directors with very specific styles in mind when they delivered the assets. Consequently, those particular examples will demonstrate very different styles. Even with our initial warning that we DO NOT INTEND WebDotCalm to represent a "unified" site, we felt better reiterating the caveat here. You really wouldn't put all of these styles together — particularly on a single page. Also, just as a technical matter, we have broken almost all of the links in the various examples below. If we thought that a particular instance represents a unique approach to a multimedia variation, we've put those active links in what our head designer affectionately calls "honking blue". Obviously these sites didn't look this way when we published them, but it will make it easier for you to notice if we've actually left a javascript link active.
That note provides opportunity for us to impart another pesky detail about doing business on the web. Modern Web Development builds basically on a triangular structure with XHTML providing the content on the page, CSS serving to add the layout, look, and feel of the effort, and JAVASCRIPT bringing in the (browser-side) interaction and entertainment. … Now if you're a super-geek out there reading this then you know this oversimplifies mightily, but go with us here on this for now, OK?
While the first two sides, XHTML and CSS, can be generally dealt with so that we can be sure the end user pretty much gets what we intend, none of us has any control at all over the third. The decision to enable javascript lies completely with the individual browser. Some people remain so paranoid about allowing web pages any interaction at all with "their machines" that they will in fact disable this completely harmless functionality. If that happens, they will get a substantially altered experience with your site. This page, as a fine example, although maintaining basic functions, really doesn't work nearly as well if you happen to have javascript disabled on your machine. If you can't see what we're talking about, consider yourself fortunate. If you are one of those overly cautious people out there, well, at least you'll be able to appreciate the value of a fine example. … Those don't happen often in life.
Travel Agency
About Deja Vu Travel
Here is where we write about all the wonderful things about Deja Vu Travel, keeping in mind of course that Search Engines seem to pay a lot of attention to the text on a site's home page, and thus we need to include as many terms as we can here that might help them find us. For the most part with your site, people are going to be coming in because they've been to see you already, and therefore already know about you, but it seems silly to ignore anyone that may be looking for local travel agencies and doesn't know about you yet for whatever reason.
We should probably talk about the benefits of having a travel agent, even when airlines are working diligently to draw people over to making reservations online. There are still very good reasons to use a service like Deja Vu, and it will do us well to remember to elaborate on that issue as we build the site.
You should probably also talk about how you've been in business for eons, and how Columbus even called you before he sailed so that you could arrange pristine lodging with the resident Indians and be sure he had confirmed suitable local transportation when he and his merry men arrived. (We should probably skip over the whole reality part, where odds are pretty good that he actually discovered Cuba, I'm thinking.)
Basically I've written this to give you some things to think about, but also to show you what the design will look like once we get to the point of actually filling it with relevant text. Visual aids are good.
— The Staff at Deja Vu
If you read the filler text that we sent to the client in the "about us" section above, you can see that this was an early draft version of our proposal for a travel agency. We didn't honestly think they'd go for this type of approach in what most would consider a very traditional business, but we wanted to give them some idea of things a little outside the "box" — even within a fairly corporate environment. Also, it gave them something to think about as we approached the deceptively tricky topic of Search Engine Optimization. As it turned out, they loved the idea. When we get the site operational, we'll link it here. Trying to talk to airline and cruise company computers isn't very fun, by the way.
Oh, and here's a HINT for this page: There's an image that looks like this 
on an image that looks like this 
. If you press that little play button you can see how we can combine flash elements into javascript applications. Since you're looking for a web company and not a travel agency, we thought you might miss it, and that would be regrettable. Also, you should know that when we write our own music, it tends to sound like this. We have many talents here, but we have never won a Grammy. Now you know why.
eCommerce & CMS — Baynetwork
Over the years we've worked with a great many Content Management Systems and eCommerce solutions. Because of their ease of use after installation, and the more and more robust "back end" UI development, these have become extremely popular options for clients wishing to accomplish the bulk of the site maintenance on their own. Being able to style an "out of the box" system remains very important, of course, but beyond the initial Setup, Styling, Security, and SEO optimization, the need to only bring us in periodically for more major upgrades or installations seems to make some people very happy.
Internally we feel that people should always want to spend as much time around us as possible, but what can you do?
This page represents just one of many currently operating sites we've deployed over the years. We chose it here not because it happens to be particularly pretty, which it is not, obviously, but because it represents a fairly major foray into a purely eCommerce marketing campaign. Although Baynetwork has a strong group of people that physically do installation and Managed IT Services, it has no brick and mortar store in the physical world.
In terms of this topic, WebDotCalm has done significant work with CMS technologies such as Content Made Simple (displayed here), Joomla!, and though not per se a CMS, WordPress. On the eCommerce side in the old days we habitually used OSCommerce. Over the last couple of years we've made the switch to Magento in the Open Source world. Baynetwork happens to use X-Cart, and we have growing experience in VirtueMart, the Joomla! extension.
In addition to the CSS design on this site, we have done the vast majority of the marketing campaigns, banners and Flash Animations.
Storefront — Fancy That
Fancy That
Distinctive gifts for those that select with care, and fancy.
Distinctive Gifts that we Fancy
Our Seasonal Fancy
Welcome to a shared fancy!
If you think about it, each of us has basically built up a lifetime of shopping experience. Fancy that.
While shopping malls may have seemed like wonderful versions of Oz to those of us with both varied tasks and tight schedules, the Internet has taken those collections of merely hundreds of storefronts and exploded the region into literally hundreds of thousands. Now we're not entirely sure whether that makes it better or worse for those of us that still try to put due consideration into our purchases, but the modern world tends to evolve without consulting us we've found. At Fancy That we work very hard to understand the busy modern lifestyle and the desire to shop efficiently without sacrificing quality in your selections.
Although we'd love it if you could drop by either of our two Southern California locations, if you're too far away, or if you simply want to peruse some of our current inventory highlights, we created this little shopping niche in the Web to allow you the options. We understand that words like "distinctive" and "unique" have almost become too commonplace to have real meaning, they honestly do exemplify our goals here.
We're making no effort at attempting to show you the literally thousands of unique items in our stores, as we've created a much larger online shopping area aimed at that goal. At the "Fancy That USA" web site we're really trying more to give you a better sense of who we are and what we offer.
So take some time to look around, or better yet give us a call. We're open every Monday through Saturday in La Cañada, and Tuesday through Saturday in San Marnio. We'd enjoy hearing from you.
The Staff at Fancy That
We talk about the use of background graphics at some length in the WebDotCalm Examples section, so we figured this would be a good place to bring up the subject again. Although you can't effectively see how the graphic adds to the feel of the design project as a whole, if we write a few paragraphs here, you can at least see the graphic in operation. As with all of our larger projects, we created a URL "icon" that shows up in the browsers when people come to the site, and in this case it's the little square you see at the beginning of this paragraph. The vast majority of people process visual information more quickly (and completely) than what they absorb in the written word; we try to remember that. If you want to see exactly what we mean, look in your browser address bar now, and you'll see this little icon representing WebDotCalm. Little things can make a big difference. 
As for the client, Fancy That maintains a retail operation with physical locations in the Pasadena, California area. As we write this, they are the newest "large" client, and as such we do not as yet have a working site to link to from here that might help you understand the scope of the project.
Also, in step with modern trends, the design uses a "wide" rather than "tall" structure, and we had to modify it just to get it to fit within the presentation space on WebDotCalm. Without getting overly technical, it involves a "dynamic" site development, which basically means that the web will reflect inventory, specials, events, and such in conjunction with the actual operation of the stores. Tracking sales and promotions from two "brick and mortar" locations at the same time as ongoing web sales — at least when you often deal with unique, often "one of a kind" items — can be challenging to say the least. On the other hand, if it were easy, anyone could do it. …
We'll try to let you know here when Fancy That goes live. That said, you should understand that despite benevolent intentions, sometimes we don't get around to updating this site as often as we should. As a rule, Clients seem to care more about their own particular deadlines than they care about whether or not WebDotCalm stays up to date. Imagine.
Independent Film & Marketing — Red Velvet
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This represents merely the front page (without the navigation) for an independent film. Not only did the project have a superior art director attached to it, but the parent production company has an atypical dedication toward attempting to make their web endeavors as creative and unusual as their projects. The vast majority of "movie sites" — even if they're very expensive and elaborately done — are much like "movies" themselves. In other words, you get all of the "assets" on a disc (or usually a great many of them), and then you just create the site to specification — basically a "build it and forget it" approach.
The people that made Red Velvet, however, have turned the web site into much more of a "fan" or "personality" site with regular press and convention updates, dozens of hidden treats throughout the ever-changing pages, and more and more reader contribution as the weeks have passed since the film's debut. Although we could have labeled Red Velvet a "movie" for our purposes in these examples, it much more closely follows a web "community" script (so to speak). If you want to take a few minutes and look around their site, you can see what we mean.
Red Velvet... The Movie... Personality ... Community ... sort of site
If you'd like to see the eCommerce application associated with this site, view the STORE
Personality & Self Promotion
Part of living near the movie scene in Southern California means that web people end up (at least potentially) dealing with a lot of clients endeavoring mightily to climb that Hollywood Dream ladder. Generally more "creative" than "corporate" in their approach, these projects tend to be some of the most "fun" for us, at least in terms of the new and emerging web technologies we get to play with.
Now as you might expect, the "artsy" people tend to choose a more artsy approach to the web. For the most part they choose Flash, because it's … well … Flashy. Although we're certainly not what purists would consider a Flash Development company, we do have a great deal of experience with Flash Animation, and can even do "complete" flash sites should that be of interest. Before we begin we'll do quite a bit of talking about Search Engine Optimization issues, and the current incompatibility with certain mobile devices, most notably the iPhone and iPad, but rather than spend too much time on possibly unnecessary discourse, we decided it might be wise to just show you an example of a recently remodeled "movie company" site and then let you ruminate on your own needs. We've found it's always best to leave time for wise ruminations in life.
And if you'd like to contact A.J. Wells for a movie project, we're fairly certain he'll be thrilled. Tell him we sent you, and that he owes us a really fancy cheeseburger.
