Benjamin Harlan
Special Features
Completely Dynamic E-commerce Site, Over 50 Digital Downloads, Contact Form, Free Music PDFs
Site Design Summary
Dr. Benjamin Harlan is an amazing musician, composer, and professor of music at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He and my family have a longstanding friendship that began (I think) when Benjie (while a teenager) was the organist at my dad’s college church where he was the music minister. Benjie has composed many well-known and widely-used songs throughout his lifetime, and I myself have sung them in choirs all over the United States. What a privilege it was in October 2006 when Benjie contacted me looking for a web developer. After experiencing the heartache and turmoil of Hurricane Katrina, and the loss of a brand new grand piano and other personal belongings, Benjie needed a fresh start and some personal renewal that I believe his website has since brought him.
Just to give a little history here, I had JUST decided to take a break from the mental challenge of web development and had that very week signed up with Southern Living at HOME. Little did I know that the Benjamin Harlan project would impress upon me God’s divine involvement in my every day life. From the very first day of accepting this project, my businesses have balanced themselves around each other so very delicately. When one gets busy, the other backs off, and vice versa. I almost always have something on my to-do list for Benjie, whether it’s a new song title to add to the shopping cart, or a nice advertisement or email to design. He has been absolutely delightful to work with, and we marveled at the fact that we never talked in person or met face-to-face throughout the entire project. We have since had a phone conversation or two, and we plan to video-chat soon on our new iMacs.
Oh yeah--about the site--Benjie needed a professional storefront to showcase his brilliant music compositions. He wanted to sell each song as a downloadable PDF that could be hard-copied by ministers of music for use with their choirs. Benjie launched his site in the Spring of 2007, and his sales have taken off.
Technicalities
XHTML, CSS, PHP
Software Used
Adobe Photoshop 7.0, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004, digiShop shopping cart/CMS