Patrick Hawes

Homepage and online shop of Brit nominated classical composer

Patrick Hawes is a classical composer with multiple accolades to his name. Not only did his debut album get nominated for a Brit it was also Classic FM’s album of the month and the fastest ever to achieve entry into their Hall of Fame. Patrick was also commissioned by HRH The Prince of Wales to write the Highgrove Suite. His album Angel also reached number one in the classical charts.

Patrick had big plans for what he wanted his site to be and needed for his team to have complete control over its content and design to keep it current and interesting. I set out in building a new version of my CMS from scratch to replace the old one I used for Tagman Press. Patrick needed to showcase his tweets and upcoming events as well as give people info on his latest projects and tasters of his music all on the home page. The featured track is a pop out music player with links to purchase and watch videos about it. Then behind the scenes we had a mass of info on all the musical pieces he had written (and stats on length, ensemble etc.) A javascript gallery showcasing events and a news section for his blog helps him communicate with his fans.

We also built four themes for Patricks team to change with the seasons (showing winter above and autumn to the right) as well as later adding a special Christmas theme as well as a special theme to commemorate the release of the album, Angel (shown below). These themes completely changed the look and feel of the site with some having extra features, background images and also offering the choice for portrait or landscape layouts for the home page (portrait mode right, landscape top).

Finally and perhaps most important is the store (below). The offer banner turns into the cart when a product is added to cart and discounts are applied when buying multiple CD’s. The whole thing is powered by javascript and orders are added to the SQL database.