I was approached by a member of the steering committee for the Corvallis Celtic Festival to create a website for them after their inaugural festival. They primarily needed an online presence for grant-writing, applications, and a way for festival attendees to get information.
Audience
- Grant Committees
- Potential performers, presenters, and vendors
- Donors and Sponsors
- Festival-goers
- Year-round Benefit Event Attendees
Deliverables
- Custom Website Design
- Astro Frontend/Contentful CMS
- Header based on client design
- Client training on CMS
- Custom forms routing
- Mailchimp integration
Feedback
“Katie developed a website for our organization that is clear, attractive, and functions beautifully. She has a knack for wading through a sea of vague ideas and finding a clear and effective solution. She was responsive to our needs and always delivered above and beyond our expectations.”
-Steering Committee Member
Project Overview
I came onto this project with a clean slate. They had a general idea of the content they wanted, but no existing website or organization emails set up and just a few branding items (including a logo). My job was to get them completely up and running.
Astro/Contentful Setup
The tech stack I used for this project was Astro.js for the frontend with Tailwind for styling and Contentful for the CMS. The frontend is deployed with Netlify and their business emails are hosted by Dreamhost.
Contentful CMS
For the CMS, I wanted something that was as intuitive as possible, as I would be handing off the editing largely to the client. I added about a dozen content types in Contentful that I predicted would be changed the most often, including events, performers, workshops, announcements, and more.
I also set up a preview method using Contentful’s Preview API so that the client can view edits before they publish. I set up a webhook to automatically deploy to Netlify when content is published or unpublished and another webhook via Zapier to notify me when this happens, so that I can ensure everything goes smoothly.
Astro Frontend
I used Astro to build the frontend, as it is a fast static site framework with tons of flexibility. The dynamic data fetched from Contentful is included in each build, though any images from Contenful remain delivered by Contentful’s CDN. The page load speed is still quite fast, even though these assets are not built in to the static page.
Custom Forms
CCF required several custom forms – a dynamic contact form (that submits form notifications based on a dropdown field), a performer application, a vendor application, and a festival survey.
I used a combination of tools to make these forms, including HTML form structure, JavaScript file validation logic, and Zapier notification routing.
Other Project Components
After building the frontend and integrating the CMS, I added a few more bells and whistles.
Mailchimp Integration
I set up a Mailchimp account for CCF and trained a committee member on how to navigate the dashboard and send campaign emails. I then added a mailing list sign-up form to their site.
Email Routing
I set up @corvalliscelticfestival.org emails for several positions within the organization and routed the emails to the correct individuals.
Client Collaboration
This project required working closely with members of the steering committee to ensure the delivered website was aligned with their goals.
Planning and Revisions
During the initial planning state, I worked with several committee members to produce a general layout. Once I had an initial design, it then went through content and layout revisions, until we reached a consensus.
CMS Training
Once the CMS structuring was in place, I met with two committee members to train them how to use the CMS and brought printed custom instructions for how to do so. I remain available to answer any question they have and monitor any updates that go through.