San Luis Obispo Downtown Association

Last week I met with members of the San Luis Obispo Downtown Association in order to get a feel and vision for their new website. The SLO Downtown Association is designed to help meet the needs of, and to promote merchants and other businesses in the downtown area. They are also responsible for many functions and events among other things, but I won’t get into all of that right now. You’ll have to check back in a bit to see their re-launched website to get the big picture.

Their website needs:

• Attractive and easy to navigate
• An updated, current and “happening” feel
• Ability to be updated and managed primarily in-house
• Multiple web forms to handle a variety of applications
• Searchable business directory to accommodate roughly 800 local and regional businesses

Those are the primary needs of the SLODA, but I’m sure more functionality and flavor will be added to the site as it prepares for re-launch. It contains approximately 30 pages of content at the moment.

Estimated turnaround time: 5 business days.

Project estimate: Way too cheap, but my two year old needs new shoes and he’s eating us out of house and home, so daddy needs work.

Once I import the existing business database and achieve proper functionality, this site should fall into place rather quickly. Implementing the database aspect of the site first gets most of my cussing out of the way early on, then leaves me with a relatively headache free workflow where I can then focus on the design and overall layout.

My approach to building a website is similar to enjoying a good meal. I prefer to start with the vegetables and save the steak and garlic mashed potatoes for last, then ultimately savor the dessert. I like to get the important staples out of the way then enjoy and concentrate on the good stuff. You feel me?