Drupal proved to be a good fit for Ohio’s Westlake Laboratories — mainly so they could take advantage of its extensibility and tremendous Ubercart E-commerce module.

This also meant de-GeoCitying their cluttered and broken look in favor of a minimal custom Drupal theme. The new design flexes to fit the user’s setup, unlike the old design in which page elements rearrange themselves at will and just get crunk all over:

Our company is named ENGINE Industries. But why? That’s what keeps you up at night. WHY?

We came up with engine first (more on that in a minute), but needed a word to go with it since some hard-working domain campers have locked down engine.com for no good reason. We liked industries since it sounds, yes, industrious, and since the plurality implies we do a bunch of different things. Which we do. Plus it plays into the same kind of mechanical, utilitarian imagery as engine, and there’s a little near-rhyme in engine and indus. ENGINE Visions or ENGINE Enterprises (or whatever) sound jarring.

So, back to engine — it comes from a quote by Ernest Hemingway…

Book is like engine.

Hemingway and a vehicle
that contains an engine

It’s a really rich image. Writing a book is like building an engine. All the pieces have to work together. Kind of like websites, too.

There’s kind of two ways to read the line, as it relates to websites. Obviously Hems didn’t know he was talking about websites at the time, but so what.

If we think of a book as a creative thing, and an engine as a useful tool, then we can look at a business website as sort of a book about engines. Like using expressive web design to present an e-commerce system. Does that make sense?

On the flipside, there’s also using rock-solid web development to back up something pretty. Like an engine that drives a book, or a stout CMS that powers a fashion blog. Is this sounding like 3 a.m. wisdom?

It’s a great metaphor forwards and backwards. Our clients need their sites to run like great engines and look like great books. Final bonus nugget: we deal with search engines, so. Engine.

(The quote itself isn’t actually from a book. The big fella delivered it while promoting Across the River and Into the Trees, a late-career novel widely described as self-parody. The minorest of minor Hemingway; I don’t know anybody who’s read it. Of course, the rest of the quote shows Pops sailing into mock bravado…

Book start slow, then increase in pace till it becomes impossible to stand. I bring emotion up to where you can’t stand it, then we level off, so we won’t have to provide oxygen tents for the readers. Book is like engine. We have to slack her off gradually.

…but we’ll ignore all that.)

B-Who-U-R, a T-shirt company devoted to children’s charities, chose us to build a vibrant, but simple, Drupal e-commerce platform. Look at how well it turned out!

First Medica, a North Carolina medical supply company, hired us to create an easy-to-use e-commerce platform. Give it the old once-over, and tell us what you think.

Remember, we can produce the same kind of e-commerce solution for your business, even if you don’t sell Glutaraldehyde by the gallon.

There comes a point in any Southern girl’s life when she daydreams of running a classy little shop packed with cool local crafts. Dianne Harvey went on ahead and did it: in May 2007, she opened the Paisley Farmhouse in Milton, Georgia.

And there comes a point in each entrepreneur’s business plan where she has a choice to make… She can have a website that acts as a signpost, pointing people in the general direction of her store—set it ‘n’ forget it. Or she can bring some skilled hands into the kitchen to cook up an online presence with all the trimmings. Yep, you can guess which one a smart gal like Dianne chose.

She wanted a website that looks and feels as warm and fresh as her shop. She needed a way to turn casual buyers into lifelong customers. How can a small business become more than just a seller of goods? How can it become a community?

That’s when ENGINE hopped on board.

The ENGINE Solution

We set out to craft a website that reflects the rural Georgia charm and Metro Atlanta flair of the Paisley. As for that whole community thing, devoting care to email marketing as a part of a cohesive branding effort has proved to be the winning recipe. And the whole thing needed a rock-solid foundation, strong enough to trust with the family business.

Let’s take a look at each slice of the pie…

Design Solution: The Power of Patterns

PaisleyFarmhouse.com earned first-entry status in Smashing Magazine’s Textures and Patterns Design Showcase for its “nicely packaged retro wallpaper tiles.” A couple of interesting points about this background…

Most importantly, it’s the best way to capture the new-old-school cool of the Paisley since much of the store’s appeal is in making new products out of old materials. And here’s a sweet feature: we designed this background to be easily made-over, meaning the site’s decor can change quite a bit depending on seasons, special events, holidays… warm colors in summer, orange for Halloween, you name it.

Elsewhere on the design front… Tying in Dianne’s classic family photos throughout the whole deal adds the ultimate personal touch. It’s the kind of thing you’d see if you strolled into the Paisley during a Saturday open house… so why shouldn’t you enjoy the same experience when dropping by the website?

We also took the time to incorporate photos that show what the store’s many themed sections really look like. We want users to be able to say they’ve visited, even if they haven’t. We’re also rolling out e-commerce functionality soon, including distinct on-shelf photos for dozens of the store’s most popular items.

Finally, the lace and ribbon on the left ties the whole package together, providing good balance with the navigation menu on the right. It all adds up to a singular impression: guests swear they’re connecting with a salt-of-the-earth store with personality and heart, not just clicking around some website.

Branding & Marketing Solution: It’s All About the Customer

The Paisley Farmhouse can’t compete with, say, Hobby Lobby or Target on price, advertising presence, or shelf space. There’s no room in the budget for self-glorifying thinkpiece commercials by some dumb-smart ad firm. But all that glitz and glamor is the secret to success, right? So why do so many of Dianne’s neighbors schedule a weekly trip to the Paisley?

ENGINE helps Diannie stay in touch with her community by lending a hand in creating a useful, relevant opt-in email newsletter, whether that means we write pieces, help arrange stuff, design new images, or what have you. Packed with handy articles, enticing coupons, heartfelt stories, gift ideas, product news, and so on, the newsletter has a very high open rate. Meaning we’ve earned the trust of our customers. Just think how many companies try to crap spam on your inbox once a week… Now imagine having a newsletter that people actually look forward to.

We also dealt up a comprehensive branding package that relates what’s best about the Paisley… from the store’s logo, business cards, and bags, to local ads and hand-written gift certificates, ENGINE’s design expertise helps tell the story. We even designed and set up the manufacture and install of the store’s big sandblasted front signage, plus special event yard signs and in-store section banners.

A full-service presentation strategy… Didn’t we tell you ENGINE’s in it for the long haul?

Development Solution: Built to Last, Built to Serve

All these wonderful courses wouldn’t amount to much without a nice, sturdy table to serve them on.

Content management is a snap with ENGINE’s custom build of Drupal. All sorts of content—new products, newsletters, blog posts—are easy to post and keep track of. Plus, Drupal offers endless expandability. Drupal’s clean and hearty development tools also boost the site’s SEO capabilities. And the same local crafters that are eager to set up a table at Paisley craft fairs are also willing to pitch in articles that make their way into the newsletter or the site’s blog. Drupal helps turn the typical guest-blogging fiasco into a well-run potluck of content.

Our working relationship with the Paisley means we stay up on design tweaks and useability testing. ENGINE is more than just a webmaster to the Paisley Farmhouse. We really are in this together!

The Paisley Just Wouldn’t Be the Same Without ENGINE

Dianne’s got enough on her plate as a small-business owner. She shouldn’t have to fuss with every detail of the whole operation. It pays to have us around, you could say.

From the foundation to the trim, Dianne’s lifelong vision kicks into gear every morning she opens for business.

Pull up a chair and make yourself at home at PaisleyFarmhouse.com.

Looking for a website that’s more than just a website?

Click below to learn more about some of the services we delivered for the Paisley Farmhouse, or, as always, contact us.