The Cartoon Studio

From concept through to advertising...

Background
The Cartoon Studio turn standard photos into professional cartoons and illustrations. Expert illustrators and cartoonists are used to create the cartoons based on the customers requirements. The completed cartoons can be downloaded from the website in various formats. The project began on 8 March 2006 with a 5 week deadline.

Brief
Design, develop and market an e-commerce website to allow customers to place an order online to turn their photos into a cartoon of their choice. The customer must be able to decide how the cartoon will appear by selecting a style, background, text, and any other additional information.

The customer should be able to upload their photo when ordering or alternatively e-mail their photo afterwards. Payment must be made prior to work commencing on the cartoons. The main form of payment will be credit/debit card, however, personal cheque, postal order, and bankers draft will be offered as an alternative. Orders can be accepted from any country, however, only certain payment options will be available to certain countries.

The design of the site must reflect the business type and be eye catching and usable. The website must comply with the accessibility legislation be search engine friendly.

A secure area is to be built where customers can login to change their order details (including their photo), access support, and download their finished cartoon. When the cartoon is ready the customer is notified via email. The cartoon can be downloaded in JPEG and PDF file formats.

Key Requirements
The following key requirements were identified from the initial website brief:

• Customers must be able to choose how their cartoon is to be made.
• Online order process with ability for customers to upload photos.
• Online and offline payment methods
• Secure customer area where customer can download completed cartoon.
• Content Management System for updating content and managing orders.
• WAI-A WCAG 1.0 minimum level of accessibility.

Work Begins
The first stage of the project was to identify the pages/sections and to define the business processes involved. Once the processes had been identified a design could be created incorporating all the design elements. The next step was to create the database structure using normalisation.

The designs and site maps were signed off after 2 weeks, which left 3 weeks to build, develop, and test the website. The development of the web site took just under 2 weeks and went smoothly. Content was placed onto the web site and care was taken to make sure accessibility and usability guidelines were met.

Finishing Touches
Once the site was nearing completion finishing touches and amendments were made including the secure online payment integration and testing. The website was launched ahead of the deadline once the website had been fully tested across multiple browsers and platforms.

Advertising and Marketing
Once the website was complete a press release was issued and an online advertising campaign was started using Google AdWords. A list of keywords were complied and multiple adverts created. As a result of the pay-per-click campaign with Google AdWords over 3,000 page views were gained within the first month.

The Future...
The future seems exciting for The Cartoon Studio website with the introduction of new sections and services, including cartoon print outs, t-shirt printing, and framing.

Project Summary
The project was to develop an e-commerce website for The Cartoon Studio. A secure online ordering system and customer login sections were also required. The deadline was 5 weeks and the project ran ahead of schedule.

"We worked very closely with AC Multimedia on our website and were delighted with the level of service, regular communication, and enthusiasm."