Pine Marten

‘A small publishing company called Pine Marten Publishing wants to develop an online presence. They produce a wide range of books that focus on different aspects of nature writing: short stories set in distinctive natural landscapes, volumes of animal, plant and insect illustrations and photography, volumes of poetry and travel guides. They employ traditional paper-making, printing and binding techniques to produce limited editions of their books and pamphlets, and pride themselves on their craft ethos. As a consequence they have tried to avoid the internet, but as many of their customers are abroad, they have realised they need a website to be economically viable for the future.

Pine Marten have asked you to research the competition online, analysing the visual feel, layout and navigation of small and large publishing companies as well as online craft and book shops. They want links to some of these sites and some narrative about what makes them successful or which elements might suit Pine Marten’s needs.

The company also needs advice on what is currently the best way to present and sell items online. They would welcome any suggestions on which kinds of technology would best suit their needs, bearing in mind that they want to update their current stock on a weekly basis. As a small company they are keen to know whether there are any freely available web design tools or shops already online they could use instead, perhaps linking together different elements from different sites.

Finally, they want a website to show their back catalogue of books, the different ranges they offer, as well as their current stock and forthcoming publications. They want to sell this material online, provide links to a range of organisations such as the RSPB, and create a space for writers and customers to review and write about their work. They want you to suggest a suitable way to organise and navigate this content into a menu by developing flow diagrams of how the content links together as well as mock-ups of how a number of the web pages will look.

Put all your research, links to examples, recommendations on existing options, flow diagrams and mock-ups into either a PDF document that can be emailed to the client, or a series of web pages they can view.’

I’ve touched on this type of thing in my working career already, where a client comes to you wanting advice and help on how to update and refresh their brand, and really bring it up to scratch and in line with what competitors are doing. Usually it’s a full rebrand that customers want doing, but in this case it is just a website build, and direction consultation.

The first place to start was to research the competition, and understand what Pine Marten needs to have in order to compete. (All of this research is in the document supplied with my submission)

I then discussed potential payment platforms for the website, followed by more example of competitors’ websites. And finally rounded off the consultation by providing a flow diagram of how the website would function, and a taster of what the homepage could look and feel like.