Client Launch: Spasha.com

After over a month of production, I am very happy to announce the launch of my latest client site: Spasha.com! The folks at Spasha came to me following a break-up with their previous scamming development company. They managed to salvage the code this company produced and hired me to finish the site off. It didn't take long to realize that this home-baked php was missing much of the site we needed, and my job became to completely rebuild the site with (my favorite) Drupal.

At this point, we were a month from launch and the previous company had held my client in limbo for nearly 4 months. When I was hired with a month 'till go time, we had to get to work. Hard work.

Development

Spasha is a company which connects spa-seeking consumers with (mostly) independent spa service providers. They needed a subscription-based membership site for members and service providers, custom searchable (and private) profiles, geolocalized search capabilities, an internal messaging system, custom user interface for both members and providers, a favorites list for keeping track of favorite providers, a rating system, secure credit card processing, and an administrative interface with custom reporting tools. You name it, it's probably in there. And, Drupal offers us the flexibility to redesign and/or expand functionality in the future.

Without getting too technical, here are a few of the specs:

• Drupal 6.17 Codebase
• Custom Drupal Theme
• Use of nearly 100 contributed modules including:
  • Boost
  • CCK
  • Content Profile
  • Display Suite
  • Fivestar
  • Flag
  • Location
  • Panels
  • Rules
  • Ubercart
  • Views
  • Just to name a few...
• A custom module implementing form and menu alters (a first for me... yes!)
• 200 hours production time
• Advanced CSS3 techniques

Design

The design of Spasha.com has been quite a production in itself. It has been on a journey covering an early photo-realistic spa-like design up to its current clean and cool web-app look.

Here are a few of the concepts and the final design:

I have to say I like the bonsai, but am very happy with the way it turned out in the end. Much of the uniqueness of the design is found on the internal pages. The message, search, and user dashboard pages have a clean organized and fun look.

My sincere best wishes to Spasha in the months and years to come. May your members and service providers abound!

What do you think about the design? Do you have a favorite? Have you tried the site? Wonder how I did something? Go ahead and leave a comment below.