Case Study
WineCountry Media / winecountry.com
NapaValley.com, Sonoma.com, and WineCountry.com are the premiere online destinations to discover global wine hotspots while exploring the unique qualities of each wine region through local, insider perspectives. Twelve23 was first introduced to WineCountry in Fall of 2015 and asked to assist with refactoring existing front-end code to be clean, semantic, and performant, as well as to implement new template designs.
Our Solution
With our partner, Jeff Reifman at Lookahead Consulting, we took on an initial 25 hour project with the singular goal of upgrading the client platform’s front-end codebase using the Bootstrap CSS framework. We took designs from a fantastic design agency and implemented functional page templates for all three WineCountry brand sites. The development team approached stripping out problematic HTML/CSS code from a standpoint of both short and long-term functionality, using modern development techniques and tools to bring the codebase up-to-date.
Development, Design, & Collaboration
A primary stipulation was to write code that would be accessible to developers with no prior project knowledge and limited backend experience. WordPress “shortcodes” were designed and developed to ensure ease-of-use for the non-technically inclined when updates to the site’s content had to happen quickly and without fear of breaking functionality or style.
Results
What started as a 25 hour project has now blossomed into a partnership bridging the gap on close to 1,000 hours of dedicated development work to keep WineCountry Media in the forefront of the digital landscape. So far, through multiple development and design iterations, WineCountry was able to execute scheduled launches of NapaValley.com, Sonoma.com, and WineCountry.com in early 2016. Currently, Twelve23 continues to collaborate with WineCountry on various WineCountry properties in both support and development capacities.