Tom VandenAvond - singer / songwriter

•

graphic design, web build, theme customization

Tom VandenAvond is one of those "wheel guys ... everything seems to revolve around them." So says Trigger in Saving Country Music. Tom, a true traveling troubadour of roots music, needed a proper hub to hear his extensive influential recordings, and a place fans could find out where he was landing next. He also needed a shop for his music that would allow him to keep as much of the proceeds as possible.

We chose a flexible WordPress theme that I customized with tasty typography, subdued color palette, extensive custom css, and a some custom code.

I created graphics for the header slider that included styled photos featuring snips of some of Tom's most memorable lyrics.

I set up a shop that uses a minimal e-commerce footprint -- using PayPal Standard as the payment gateway and Amazon S3 as the digital warehouse for the downloadable MP3s. This configuration allows a secure, familiar shopping experience for fans, while it allows Tom to keep virtually all sales revenue.

Homepage includes the essentials for quick visits: the ever-evolving gig list,

a sampler music player, latest updates, and booking and press info.

Rotating photo slider includes images and snips of Tom's indelible lyrics.

Music page features mini music players of each album: entire tracks can be played with a simple click and track listings for the album are visible by clicking on the menu icon in the corner.

Shows page offers a drop down menu with all details and a ticket purchase link when applicable.

Photo gallery page opens a pop-up letterbox styled gallery that rotates through photos within each section. More photo collections including cool tour posters are visible by scrolling down the page.

Shop page includes the self-hosted shop for digital downloads of MP3s as well as physical CDs. Future merchandise can be added easily. MP3 files are stored on Amazon S3, which uses the same reliable digital delivery platform that Amazon uses for its own products, at a very low cost.