The Helm (www.thehelm.ie) is a Bar & Restaurant, B&B and Self Catering business in Westport, Co. Mayo. Myself and Ronan Farrell (http://ie.linkedin.com/in/ronanfarrell) took this project on together in an effort to provide the client with a much improved website to replace their old one. Ronan took care of the database work in the back end and the content management system, and I came up with the logo and website design, and coded the front-end (layout and user interaction).

The website homepage has some interactive sliders on the right side of the main image, a link to a video which pops open on the same page, a rotating special offers slider, and social media functional in the footer to encourage users to share the website with their friends.

I used a nautical chart style background here to add to the maritime theme of their brand.

The little boxes to the right of the above image slide open to reveal further information and link to their respective pages.

They provided us with a lovely short video clip about the area, which I embedded in this page for easy viewing.

Google maps are a great addition to any relevant website, allowing users to generate a printable sheet of directions to the destination from wherever it is that suits them most.

This is the overall layout of the secondary pages. The header banner fades in and out between various photos of the premises and surrounding areas.

 

There is an update due to their site soon which improves the alignment of some elements and adds further features. Feel free to pop over there for a visit at www.thehelm.ie.

Thanks for reading!

06.01.12 – Update

The Helm website was updated last week to include some new features requested by the owners. They also informed us that they received 140% more bookings via their website over the Christmas than the previous year with the older website!

A quick speed test is showing that the website is extremely quick, thanks to a combination of efficient code and some advanced server techniques discovered by Ronan.

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