A Lot of Cars is a used car dealer in north Durham, NC.
In contrast to my most recent project, A Lot of Cars began with a very clear and direct design request from the client. To paraphrase, the command was, “make it look like apple.†While it would be neither ethically or legally appropriate to copy apple’s site directly, I took the core elements of their site: clean layout, abundance of white, the ‘gloss’ look, and a touch of p-diddy pinstripe, to create the backbone of the site template. These elements do an excellent job of communicating cleanliness and precision, concepts useful, though not naturally associated, with the sale of used cars.
Stock Photography
When working with such a bare template, the need for quality images is elevated as they serve as the primary elements with which the visitor creates their emotional connection (and stays on your site). The stock photographs were taken by myself on an early Sunday morning (the best time to avoid *cough* nosy car salespeople). The photographs are even more successful when you factor in my grossly inadequate 2mp digital camera.
Inventory Database
Beneath the template is where the bulk of the work took place. The vehicle inventory runs on a completely custom built content management system that adds/deletes/sorts the vehicles, handles image uploading and resizing, and provides an overview of the number/category of vehicles in the database. The site text is likewise built into this system and uses a slightly tweaked implementation of tiny mce to produce standards compliant code.
The entire site validates as xhtml 1.0 strict and meets automated section 508 accessibility requirements.
All in all I feel the site is incredibly successful on all levels. Credit should also be given to the site owner for bringing such a well thought out direction to the development process.
