We finally launched the Crestview Doors Online Store. You can shop all our models. You can even buy one if you want. It was a huge effort to build the site. Our deadline was Labor Day weekend and Christiane and I stayed up past 3 am that Friday night perfecting it.
It was very cool to see how our knowledge and skills meshed. We both do interaction design, but my background is more design and advertising, and Christiane’s is more programming and business processes. I did all the visual design and copy writing, and Christiane integrated the shopping cart with a CRM system and credit card processing. It all comes together on the product page and at one point we were exchanging snippets of code wirelessly via IM across the living room to get it done.
It was all very 21st century.
Writing is not my strongest skill. I can appreciate well crafted ad copy. I can even write some given enough time and the right mood. Unfortunately, the Crestview Doors website required a lot of ad copy. The biggest challenge was writing a description for each of the 35 models of doors. I started out on a roll, writing informatively about the designs I had been thinking about for months…

The Pasadena is our most adaptable design. It is grand enough for a large rambling ranch, and understated enough to add a modern touch to a small cottage. With its formal simplicity it can replace a windowless flush doors on a 1960s mid-century home without breaking the modern aesthetic.

Then I started using analogies…

The Woodrow is the ‘57 Chevy of doors. Like tailfins on cars, it seems to only appear in late 1950’s then vanishes suddenly, leaving a design that is highly evocative of a very narrow time in style history.

Then … it started getting late and I started to fancy myself a poet.

Like the eye of a cat, the Parkway is both serene and intense. It can add punctuation to a Ranch that changes everything. On a mid-century modern it lets in light without breaking the modern aesthetic. On a modern contemporary, it’s warmly institutional, like a schoolhouse door.

Then it got later … and I started to get punchy.

What does the Fontenot that you do not? Like a strip of highway flashing past you, the Fontenot is frenzied and ordered at the same time. Use it to add a swinging, fearless touch to your buttoned down Ranch. Paint it green and order is with custom blue art glass. Why? Because you know what the Fontenot’s.

Then I got down-right nutty.

Wellington! Weeeeeeeeelingtoooooon! Time for dinner!
The Wellington is the protected childhood of a hard partying English rock star. It is Weetabix and rage.
Add a homey touch of rebellion to your house with this 50s classic.

This oddball writing has been up on the web site for almost 2 weeks. Sales are going well, and traffic on the models with the goofiest descriptions is good. So now I’m wondering, is this wacky copy helping or hurting sales? Is it turning people off or is it attracting just the kind of customers we want? Do I need to fix it or call it a happy accident?
I really Fontenot.