What's a Colophon, anyway?
Well, according to our friends at merriam-webster, a Colophon is "an inscription placed at the end of a book or manuscript usually with facts relative to its production." We owe a shout-out to a whole slew of people who have helped us get this site ever-closer to the state of zen we've always envisioned. Here's how we did it and who helped us along the way.
Wildbill Guarnere.com Colophon
Site Design History
This site has gone through 4 major redesigns. Each redesign has been an attempt to better organize the content based on the way users have come to use the site. If there's one thing I've learned over the past three years, it's this: our users want to find information quickly and easily. Our last iteration of the site was the absolute worst as it was just plain busy, with way too much content surrounded by too many bells and whistles (I was in a "bell and whistle" phase).
The "Voice" of the site
Our users come from all over the world, and English is not necessarily the primary language of those who visit the site. Having said that, I've tried to use a more international "voice" so that the main content areas read more easily. As someone who prides myself on my writing, I've learned that it's more important to be understood than it is to sound ultra-educated. I hope this new site reflects a more simple, concise writing style. I've rewritten all the content under my personal control.
The Look and Feel
Regarding the "look and feel" of this newest version of the site, I've turned to a few web standards gurus to help me in the task of making a big site seem small. I owe a debt of gratitude to Dan Cederholm for providing me with great insights via his book on the subject of design. As well, I have studied his own site code and there are obvious references to his work in this site as well. I did, however, craft everything by hand and felt it was important to do that in the name of learning (as well as not stealing the work of others).
For the main navigation rollovers, I consulted the site of the mighty designers over at Pixelworthy. In the world of standards-based web design, the guys on the top floor are some of the best around. It's not coincidental that they're on the 19th floor, as going up there leaves one with the feeling that they have truly reached a summit in the field of design. I met a few of the guys as a result of a visit to their facility as part of my day job.
Site Structure
This site is authored in strict XHTML, which is still causing some validation problems in some of the pages that contain dynamically generated links. Since this site is family-owned and operated, I'm ok with that for now. The entire layout of the main site is controlled by CSS, and this site was one of the first I redesigned in this fashion. As a former designer (and one who was designing during the golden age of tables), I felt this site could benefit from a redesign using web standards. It's far easier to update than it was, and a lot easier on the eyes. Most of the CSS I wrote myself, but I credit everyone from The CSS Zen Garden to the folks over at A List Apart for their various contributions. Best of all, there's just so little code behind these pages...they're as light as a feather, as all the heavy lifting is being done by one style sheet, and that's it.
Third Party Software
Wildbill Guarnere.com is largely driven by third party solutions. The forums are driven by the folks over at Invision Power. Our online store is powered by X-Cart, which has allowed us to offer hand-signed products to our customers. Our Online Photo Gallery is driven by Photopost but is a quirky, clunky application that we're looking to replace.
Software
The following software was used in some way, shape or form for the redesign of this website:
Backoffice Software
This website runs on a dedicated server powered by Redhat Enterprise Server. It uses PHP to handle all the code parsing and all of the data driven areas of the website are connected through a series of My SQL databases. As well, we are using Paypal to run all our Subscription Services as well as the payment gateway for our online store.