Online Guitar Designing Solution - Design My Guitar Case Study

RADIXWEB

Online Guitar

Designing Solution

- Design My Guitar Case Study

` Case Study – Design My Guitar

401 , Anand Mangal – II, C.G. Road, Ahmedabad 380009 | [email protected] P a g e 1

RADIXWEB | www.radixweb.com

Table of Contents

The Client 3

Requirements 3

Radix Approach 4

The Solution 4

Star Features 9

Vector Graphics Support 9

Image Masking & Transparency 9

Custom Frontend Design 9

Technologies Employed 10

The Wrap Up 10

About Radix 11




The Client

Design My Guitar (DMG) is a Belgium based independent guitar branding

company with a unique vision. They wanted to change the way guitar buffs

owned and possessed a guitar. They wanted their customers to see their

guitars as an extension of their art and not just a piece of instrument. So

they choose to allow their customers to design their guitars online. Today,

their customers can have an Elvis Presley or The Beatles donning their

guitar.

Requirements

When DMG approached Radix, they were looking for an online platform that

could allow guitar players to design their own guitar at affordable rates. This

looked like a pretty simple requirement on the face of it. However a closer

analysis of the client’s vision of the end solution revealed a few more

requirements that went hand in hand with the broad idea. These

requirements were as follows:

The first requirement that came to the surface was the DMG wanted

their solution to have a very distinct yet appropriate look and feel.

They intended to use the solution to display their products and product

information.

They wanted the solution to have some sort of interface that allowed

the customers to design guitar designs online.

They also discussed about providing ready guitar designs to their

customers to use if required.

They wanted their solution to have some kind of design preview

facility.




DMG also wanted the solution to be flexible enough to

accommodate future additions to their product line.

They also wanted the solution to have online ordering facility.

DMG had plans to use the solution for online promotions and

advertisement.

They also wanted to have some sort of overview of their solution

customers and their activities.

They also wanted to have control over the content published on the

solution.

Radix Approach

This project was very different from our usual web to print projects. While

we had developed online designing solutions for print companies in the fast,

this was a guitar company that we had to develop the solution for. Although

a challenge, we took it in our stride and started with analyzing the

requirements. We tried to visualize what their solution would look like and

what would be feasible. We mapped DMG’s business processes to our

solution for development purposes. We phased out our development efforts

for better management. We identified the ideal resources for each

development phase and assigned them to the phase. Thus, it was a very

meticulous and systematic approach that we adopted for Design My Guitar’s

project.

The Solution

Web to print is not restricted only to traditional print industry and popular

product line. It can successfully serve other industry verticals as well. Design

My Guitar proved this when they used web to print to design a very unique




and unconventional product – guitar. They allow their customers to

choose a guitar body and design it from scratch.

The most striking thing about DMG’s storefront is their frontend which

has a look that speaks volumes about their business.

They can display their product range and host product information on

the solution as demanded.

We have developed DMG’s solution to allow their system admin to add

unlimited number of products to their product gallery.




DMG’s customers can use the system to create custom designs

with the help of our online designer studio or use ready designs.

The solution permits the system admin to host design templates for

customers who want to use ready designs.

Like products, the system admin can add unlimited number of design

templates to the solution.

The templates can be categorized and sub-categorized by the system

admin for easy search.




We have integrated an online designer studio in DMG’s

storefront which allows their customers to edit and personalize design

templates or create designs from scratch.

The solution provides a low-resolution digital preview to the customers

for their design. They can even save it for future referral.

Our online designer studio also generates a 300DPI print-ready PDF

file as final output.

We have integrated an advanced shopping cart system in DMG’s

solution to allow their customers to buy guitar designs online.

DMG can further use the solution to sell guitar hardware as well.




We have also integrated an online payment gateway and

shipping gateway in their solution to facilitate online payments and

manage product deliveries.

We have developed DMG’s solution with a customer login facility which

further creates a dedicated customer account.

This dedicated customer account can store customer profile, order

histories, billing and invoicing details, designs saved, image library,

etc.

DMG’s system admin has access to the solution’s content management

system which allows them to publish latest news, FAQs, design

guidelines, etc.

DMG runs a gift certification programme under special offers on their

solution. Their customers can redeem their coupons or certificates

during the checkout process.

DMG can also use the solution to publish newsletters accessible via

subscription. These subscriptions can be again managed by the system

admin from the backend itself.




Star Features

Every customer is different with a very typical business model. However,

Design My Guitar was a very unique case wherein their product itself was

interesting. Since they were looking for an online guitar designing tool, we

carried out certain customizations to our standard storefront and made it

more relevant for their business model.

Vector Graphics Support

It’s easy to design traditional products like a business card using high

resolution images in an online designing tool. However, these high resolution

images may not be suitable for a product like guitar. So we customized

DMG’s solution to support vector graphics. Their customers can upload EPS,

AI, and PDF files in the studio and use them for designing.

Image Masking & Transparency

This was again a feature custom developed in the online designer studio for

DMG. Designing guitars through traditional means often involves masking an

image or adjusting its transparency to get that very striking look. Therefore,

we replicated these functions in DMG’s design studio property panel.

Resultantly, their customers are able to create guitar designs that look

professionally done.

Custom Frontend Design

Since web-to-print is more commonly used by printers and print design

providers, the storefront layouts are designed to relate to the printing

industry. However, since DMG was a music industry player we custom

designed a layout that did justice to their industry standing. We designed a

layout that helped them strike a chord with their target audience.




Technologies Employed

PHP

MySQL

JavaScript

AJAX

CSS

HTML

DHTML

Flash

The Wrap-Up

Design My Guitar was a great learning experience for Radix. What really

made this project special was its unique concept and product as against the

traditional print industry projects. Over and above the programming and

coding, there was a creative element to it where we were challenged and we

delivered successfully. It also gave us a chance to prove to the world that

web to print is not just about printing industry. There is a lot more to it. We

just need to be creative enough to explore further and map its use to

different business verticals. We are proud of our association with Design My

Guitar and look forward to a longstanding business association.




About Radix

Radix is an IT outsourcing company that leverages the potential of

technology to deliver effective, reliable, and consistent IT services with cost

savings. But we do not simply deliver economies of scale. Our multi-

technology and multi-domain exposure enables us to add to your bottom-

line.

401, Anand Mangal-II,

C G Road, Ahmedabad,

Gujarat-INDIA

Phone: +91-79-32403371

VoIP: +1-718-715-1551

Email: [email protected]

Date post:	03-Mar-2015
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Online Guitar Designing Solution - Design My Guitar Case Study

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