Dexel Crafted builds contemporary furniture. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia his custom designed tables, chairs, beds and dressers fuse traditional woodworking techniques and innovative joinery with clean contemporary design.
Showcase → Dexel Crafted
Submitted on Friday, Jul 17th, 2009
- 6287 reads
This one is definitely of the most impressive Drupal sites submitted in last few months. Light and easy drupal + js joint venture!
drupalsites.net editor
There are still a few bugs with it but for the most part we are extremely happy with it. Most people are surprised to find out its not flash.
I`d like to see such things in my house!
I`ll think of it ;)
Nice job! Would love to know more about how it was implemented (looks like some drupal modules plus custom AJAX work?).
Yes. It is primarily built with drupal but there are a couple of custom built modules to handle the ajax effects. Custom page calls, animation, and ajax history. Scalable backgrounds were done with supersized. A wicked little piece of jquery. Google it.
It's a nicely done site, but there are some UI issues. The portfolio box text is almost impossible to read, the transparent background frequently puts white text over a light background. (Same is true for the other menu items as well). And given the amount of real estate, why not bump the text size a bit? On some pages the Dexel logo also disappeared against white.
Just my two-cents.
Thanks for your comments. I agree with you over the font size. I am always pushing the designers here to bump up the font but they fight it tooth and nail.
The original comps had dark imagery in each background. It wasn't until later did the lighter images snuck in. I will pass on your comments here and hopefully use it as a bit of leverage to improve the site.
Thanks again,
Sherakama
I suggest your designers test the site on an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Your Portfolio section shows no pictures, and is very confusing to navigate. It's a real shame, since the content and color pallette is nice, but overwhelmed by the over-engineered navigation. Another case of cleverness eclipsing function, it appears.
I'll be heading to my desk now, to view Dexel's fine furniture product line.
Thanks for the heads up. This site was never intended to work in the mobile environment. The design and the functionality does not transfer well to mobile. That was a choice that was made early. That being said you do raise a good point. The mobile market is not something to forget. We will keep track of the visitors and see if there is a need for a mobile site in the future. For now thanks for enjoying the site.
..none of the images in the portfolio section show in Firefox (3.5) this morning. Gotta agree with Rob G (no relation - I think) on the other comments too.
Thanks for the heads up. I just updated my FF to the latest and I to, can replicate the bug with the background images. I will get on that right away. Many eyes makes good de-bugging and tips are always helpful.
Cheers,
It's like flash, but indexable! :)
Backgrounds give the site a really nice feel, would very much like to do something similar for a Reno realtor. Designs like this really breathe life into information that isn't going to be updated often and could get quite stale. Well done!
Cheers,
Chris
Real estate magazine