New Covec website launched

Covec.co.nz has been launched this week. The project was incepted in April after Covec undertook a rebranding exercise. A radical redesign of their website was developed and Argent of Change was tasked with turning the design into a content-managed website with advanced features but one that was still easy to use.

The need for content management had been apparent for some time and AOC pitched Drupal 6 as the system that could provide the features that Covec needed, among which was a non-hierarchical organisation of content where multiple projects were linked to different sectors which had several related services and skillsets in which various team members specialised.

Another important requirement was to come up with a theme that was absolutely faithful to the redesign (based on just several studies which were provided with the branding document) without necessarily sacrificing usability or site functionality. Fonts, images, graphics and colours were integral and Covec was very much involved in ensuring that the look and feel would be preserved.

During preparations, AOC made several drafts of the features list which were used to estimate time and other resources. There was also extensive research and trial involved in selecting the modules and themes, most of which have been listed here:

• Genesis (theme)
• Administration Menu
• CCK
• Views
• Content Profile
• Node Reference
• Imagecache
• Nodequeue
• Node Auto Term
• Pathauto
• Signwriter
• Views Slideshow
• DHTML Menu

In the end, the site was delivered on time, on budget and on schedule, despite a few hiccups along the way. The project was shepherded by Aaron Schiff, a director at Covec who has presently taken the reins as website administrator.