Ryan Ilg { Interactive Development: Rockstar; Location: Vancouver, Canada }

Collectable Tiles

Sid Dickens was one of the largest projects I have taken on (solo) to date, and employs a huge amount of custom code and modules. One of the biggest and most rewarding sections of the site for me to build was the social Tile Gallery tool. It allows users to select products from the site, and arrange them on a virtual wall. Dragging and dropping the user can position the products, and upon dropping, it stores the location in the database. Once the user has finished positioning all their tiles, they can name the gallery, give it a description, and publish it for the world to see. The galleries are then listed in the community section where other users can view, and add all the tiles on the wall to their cart in 1 click. Perfect for when someone does not know what they want until they see it. Another social aspect of the site is the Tales & Tributes, which is an custom advanced commenting system, allowing users to add their own stories and memories about a specific tile. Other sections include a blog, a retailer search, and a retailer only section of the site, to name a few.

Vancouver Shoe Startup

Taking inspiration from quite a few flash sites, Mark created a simple, yet functional design to emphasize the new Native Shoes. With usability, and web standards in mind, I created the base using XHTML + CSS, running on Drupal for content management. Using a combination of Taxonomy, CCK, Views, and a boat load of custom code, I created an easy to manage product catalogue, with built in Ubercart integration, to allow purchasing of shoes online (coming soon).

Upon first arriving at the site, you are presented with large photos, linked to various sections around the site. The site includes many special rollover states, adding large photos and text on hover. Clicking an individual product brings the user to a horizontally scrolling view of product colours, and allows the user to see all the colours that product is offered in. After choosing a colour, the user is presented with a 360˚ rotation of the shoes, which works with a hover interaction.

Helping BC Families

Built on Drupal, the new BCCF site allows their internal team to update and manage their website and the events & programs listed. Using CCK & Views, the site content is populated based on the published content. Using CiviCRM, BCCF is able to manage their contact database, as well as have users sign up for events directly on the site. Ubercart is also configured, and used to sell informative publications online.

2010 Vancouver Olympics house sharing project.

Using Drupal at its core, Home For The Games is one of the most customized Drupal sites I have ever built. With more than 30 different contributed modules, and a purchasing/property creation module built from scratch integrated with Paypal. The use of jQuery, and a customized jQuery date picker, allows for quick and easy tagging of available dates. Home For The Games allows hosts/homeowners to create a profile, and allows a visitor to book individual days to stay. You can learn more about the systems that operate HFG on my blog post.

Vancouver Designer, Isabelle Swiderski

Using Drupal 6 with a handful of modules. It's standards compliant as well as backwards compatible. Project images are dynamically loaded via jQuery (Javascript) and displayed to the user without reloading an entire page. If the user happens to have Javascript turned off, the site still functions as properly by loading images with a fresh server call.

Plenty Boutique Clothing Stores in Vancouver

I had the pleasure of working with Sonja Schneider again on yet another Drupal project. Using an already existing install of Drupal, I was in charge of building a new skin, adding new sections, and providing additional functionality. Using a mix of XHTML, CSS & jQuery(Javascript). The new Plenty site adds a slew of new features, all of which built on standards based code. The site degrades on older browsers, but provides a slick interface for the users that keep up to date.

Real Estate Development in South Surrey, BC

Drupal was once again used for this large site of floor plans, flash modules, and all around real estate goodness. Using jQuery and Javascript onto of XHTML base, allowed us to give the user a more fluid experience, while still allowing it to degrade gracefully (so it still works for people without js). Animations and on the fly loading allows users to view photo galleries on any page, in a large format. Giving the user a great experience into buying at Morgan Crossing.

High-end North American Dental Company

Using a mixture of XHTML, Javascript, and Flash, I pulled together TBWA Vancouver's designs into a total functioning package. Upon loading up the site for the first time, you are confronted with an intro, which is actually loaded on top of the XHTML structure. When the two second intro is finished, it disappears and gives access to the XHTML site below. Using Flash, before and after photos can be easily browsed, and blown up with the click of a button. If the Flash plugin is not available, the same tools are provided in an XHTML + CSS version, but just lack the animations.

With almost 2 months of build time alone, this project was a hefty one. Running Drupal as a back end CMS, along with the integration of about 30 different modules, the site eventually came together with quite a bit of modification to the CMS. Using a not so standard layout was one of the biggest challenges in getting everything to play nice, but with the help of CCK, custom templates, and a whole lot of CSS, they all managed to eventually meld into one clean product. To add to the slickness, SIFR is used for menu items, as well as column headers.