When we were contacted by Mollie, daughter and business partner of bestselling author, Jennifer Crusie, for help with a new website for her mother, we couldn’t have been more thrilled.  While Mollie had created a site that suited Jenny very well for the earlier part of her career, a change in Jenny’s writing style, along with a desire for updated, dynamic functionality, it was time for a complete overhaul from the “ground” up.

The first stop was assessing the design aesthetic Jenny wanted to convey. She used words like ‘eclectic’, ‘dark’, ‘texture’ and ‘quirky’.  She also expressed that her new books had a moodier tone and ran the gamut of everything from magic to 30’s noir.  Then she presented an image that really spoke to her: the vintage postcard of a witch riding a broom and wanted to include it somehow, if not make it the focal point.  And finally, for inspiration, she sent a video to Imogen Heap’s “Goodnight and Go”.

Taking all this into account, with fewer revisions than I think either of us expected, we created a layered, collage-style heavily textured design that reflects not only Jenny’s writing, but personality, as well.  Jenny’s existing site and branding included a plump red cherry and we didn’t want to disregard that entirely, so we made her beloved witch hold it high and proud. We also worked in imagery reminiscent of the video, carnivals and magic, speaking to the kind of ‘vintage sideshow’ tone we were hoping for.

Jenny’s site was quite extensive in terms of quantity of pages and copy.  With dozens of novels, essays and non-fiction under her belt, it’s to be expected. The key was creating an optimum way for Mollie and Jenny to not only upload new books and manage content themselves, but for users to surf the site comfortably and find what they’re seeking without too much effort.

We worked with the ever-popular Wordpress for this project and custom coded it to the hilt, using only a handful of plugins, providing not only basic book information, but access to buy the books, read a sample chapter, book-specific reviews and an inside take on the writing process.  And that’s just the fiction section!  The books areas has four subsections, each unique and the “Jenny Info” area contains not only her bio, but an event schedule, mailing list and FAQ.  There’s an entire section especially for writers, that contains articles and essays for aspiring authors, and workshops.  And finally, the “More Info” area which contains all kinds of links, odds n’ ends and extras about Jenny’s books, characters and community.

Jenny and Mollie also asked us to redesign Argh Ink, Jenny’s separate blog on arghink.com, was also designed to be a seamless user experience, carrying over the concept to a separate domain.  Using a separate installation of Wordpress, we implemented a similar design to her blog, which was a big hit with her long-time blog readers.

If you’ve not read any of Jenny’s books (you should!) or even if you are a long-time fan, please stop by jennycrusie.com or arghink.com and take a look at our handiwork!  We had such a good time working with her and while she probably won’t need a new site for a while, we’re pretty sure she’ll be back. Thanks, Jenny and Mollie!