Clickcase is one of many sites that have gone live in the last year that I have not had time to blog or add to my portfolio, but it’s one of my two favourites so I thought I’d portfolio it up. Plus, they are selling awesome accessories for iPads and iPhones right here in Ireland, and you may want to bundle some under your yule tree!

I’ll be honest and say that this project was hard going. The client brief was pretty liquid, and we started from scratch in terms of name, logo and design. That can end in one of two ways: creative bliss or Shakespearean tragedy. Luckily, after 15 years of doing this, I have a pretty high batting average and get it right first go more than 98% of the time. But the first design we did for the site just didn’t come together in a way you could really hang a brand on, so Katherine and I threw it out and started over. And by “threw it out” I mean threw out the whole thing – logo, design and build. The whole thing.

Happily, it’s a bit like childbirth in that it can feel like it will never end when you’re going through it, but then it’s all over, you’re mightily pleased with the results, and it all seems worth it. Both Katherine and I and the client love the site, which features all the usual ecommerce suspects plus agile product tagging, snazzy product images, inline product question forms and lots of really nice features all over. WordPress is silently integrated to provide more robust content management for non-product pages than our cart offers out of the box. There’s also a swanky Facebook page to go with.

In an interesting sidenote, after choosing and registering the clickcase.ie domain, we were able to score the already-owned clickcase.com domain for an unprecedented $60. I have picked up aftermarket domains for clients from $250 – $750 (I won’t spend more) but getting your .com for $60 has to be the bargain of the century.

Finally, after 30 years of rejecting Apple products, I have been seduced by the kitchen potential of the Speck Handyshell and would dearly like one for Christmas. And an iPad to go with it…

(PS: Yes, yes they do have Dodo Cases. You Apple people are so pervy.)

I had no idea what a handbag hanger was when Mark Renwick called me about doing a site for his range of handbag hangers and charms, but as soon as a package of chic, sparkly, girly goodness arrived at my door, all became clear. Slightly more complicated than understanding what would go on the site was naming it; we went through what felt like 97 brands (and I even appealed to Twitter for help!) before landing on BAGglitz.com.

Anyway, it launched last week in it’s all its swanky glory, and is a very nice shopping spot when you’re looking for gifts for your girlfriends. They offer completely free shipping anywhere in the world, which makes it a great one to stick in your bookmarks for those last minute gifts sent straight to the recipient.

This site features ecommece with Realex integration and complete product, order and inventory management. Design, branding and logo by me; life-saving support provided by Katherine Nolan.

A mere four weeks after launch, James Whelan Butchers picked up the award for Best SME Website at the 2010 Irish Web Awards. It barely made the September entry deadline, which was something of a milestone as Katherine Nolan and I began development on this site a full year before.

JamesWhelanButchers.com features an ecommerce front end that is simple and easy for customers to use and belies the incredibly functionally complex backend built by Katherine, integrating multi-part pricing, barcode scanning, dispatch integration and SMS updates. The only word to describe this build is “epic.” The site also features video guides, a recipe archive, a blog, a newsletter and full social media integration.

Shiny new ecommerce to go with glittering, opulent jewellery for luxury retailer VSL Jewelry. The site has a custom front end and an off the shelf ecommerce back end, with WordPress and Campaign Monitor bolted on to provide tertiary services with no custom development overhead.

This was something of a “lux” project for me as I had a free hand with design, was given a CD crammed full of spectacular professionally shot images, got to name products and write absolute tonnes of lush copy, and basically delivered an end to end online brand. Victoria Shorten is a great client to work with – and I am not just saying that so she’ll give me a NY STACK bracelet set.

Late night PHP and CSS bailouts from Katherine Nolan and John Handelaar. Coffee actually delivered to my house by Ciara Crossan. Launch contest inspired by my own covetous desire.

This was a slightly unusual project for Niall Harbison, Ireland’s favourite online chef, in that the site was up and running and just needed a visual overhaul. It was grey and blue and had a cool but unclear tab thing in the homepage, and while it was functionally fantastic, it was hard to figure out what exactly VidVend does.

I worked with David Kelly at Ambient Age to make the five day deadline. We re-styled every page with simple but very different CSS changes, and while David sorted out implementing the updates, I re-wrote the copy. Niall mostly got out of the way, made with the money, and wrote me a lovely recommendation on LinkedIn, which was honestly a pretty ace way to work.

Michael Kane of CuriousWines.ie had a spec for his website that looked like a €25,000 custom back end job. Working with ecommerce goddess Katherine Nolan, we were able to pull 95% of his wishlist out of the bag with a heavily hacked off the shelf ecommerce system for a tiny fraction of that cost. We also added some very cool features like product tagging and reviews along the way to create a nicely dynamic site.

They’re launching with a very cool giveaway contest for Christmas, and a special 24 hour discount code on Twitter, too!

An updated look for my favourite client and the godfather of Irish telecoms, Pat Phelan. It was a nice surprise to see MAXroam launch their new website this morning. The site redesign coincides with MAXroam’s new mobile data roaming rates, which have already been called a “giant killer” so congrats to the MAXroam team.

It took two months, but I’m delighted to see Deb Hadley’s Spicendipity launch today. The site features a full catalogue and shopping cart system, products linked to a recipe index, and a blog. (Come to think of it, I think this is my first ecommerce site in Ireland.) For this start-up, I designed the site, logo and branding, and in a rare foray into the world of print – which I hate – I also did the business cards:

Seriously, I hate print, so every time something comes off the press with the correct spelling and even vaguely centred, I’m inordinantly happy. Plus, vertical cards are just cool, man.