BrizPIX

BrizPIX

A compact business site catering to the niche for art prints and photography of Bristol.

2006 update: the company is on hiatus whilst its main photographer and founder pursues educational paths.

Site Description

A blend of PHP, MySQL, javascript & stylesheets, with the majority of pages drawing content from a database of prints and categories.

All thumbnails are dynamically generated from full previews and added to a server cache when first requested. This reduces server load and minimises the work necessary to add content.

The large previews are 'tamper-proofed' using a mixture of javascript and stylesheet techniques to deter copying. All images are naturally also protected from remote linking by other sites. [1]

A shopping basket system stores user data between visits and allows for easy amendment of quantities. Totals for goods and shipping are determined automatically and any discount for multiple items applied.

A simple mail form is supplied to encourage visitor enquiries, with safeguards in place to avoid it being abused by spammers. [2]

Following a meeting with a founding member of BrizPIX to determine requirements, phone and mail contact was kept to ensure development progressed to expectations.

The inventory system treats each image as a separate item, which can be extended at a later date to offer prints at postcard or A3 size without requiring duplication of data. BrizPIX wished to focus on offering fixed size prints via the site whilst establishing themselves, with custom prints and licensing of images available on a negotiated basis.

With the exception of the logo I had a free hand with colour and layout, and therefore kept it in mind to ensure that neither drew attention from the photography.

Maintenance Plan

Whilst I am available for further development, all of us wanted to avoid updates being reliant on a single individual as is so often the case in small business situations.

Therefore a simple web content management system was constructed, enabling:

• Text of the main page, information page and contact form to be edited, along with pricing and the creation of promotional offers such as 'buy two get one free'.
• Creation, editing and ordering of image categories, with optional descriptions.
• Images to be uploaded, details edited and assigned to one or multiple categories.
• A list of images to be maintained for cycled promotion on the main and info pages.
• Most importantly: order details to be retrieved and searched by unique ID.

This private area is server-side password protected. Screenshots available on request.

Technical Notes

1. 100% image protection is, of course, impossible—if an image can be seen, it can be copied. However, it is possible to encourage visitors to respect ownership of content without resorting to kludges such as 'right-click blocking scripts' applied carelessly to whole pages. Such behaviour would serve only to inconvenience legitimate users.
   
   
2. The form will send only to a hardcoded site address and a single user-entered one. Spam would be instantly noticeable at the site address, and an IP address logged in case an abuse complaint needs to be made to an ISP. The clickable site mail link is obfuscated to discourage automated mail-address-collecting bots, but is provided (along with a traditional postal address) for full business transparency.
   
   
3. The screenshots shown here have reduced palettes for optimal browsing speed; naturally, the images on the BrizPIX site are presented at true colour depth.