Aidan Builds Seattle Pops Website

 

By: Evie Caldwell

Digital Technology and Culture senior Aidan Aumell recently used a class project as an opportunity to create a real-world website for Seattle Pops, a popsicle shop based in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle.

The project was assigned in Tor de Vries’s 355: Multimedia Authoring class. Each student was asked to create a website for a fictional business with over fifteen pages of content. “Once I heard about the guidelines about the project, I instantly thought that it would be a good opportunity to help a local small business like Seattle Pops,” said Aidan. He wanted to design a new website for the business that was easier to interact with and would give customers a better sense of the product and the brand. Aiden went above and beyond the assignment requirements, creating an entirely new website on a page-by-page basis with WordPress. He also created an ecommerce site for merchandise. Seattle Pops wanted to stay with their current platform, so he rebuilt his entire design with Squarespace in order to launch it.

While working to create a website that was user friendly and accessible, Aidan put a lot of thought into his design choices. The original home page for Seattle Pops was very long and image-heavy, so Aidan condensed the information and added an informative video to give customers a look inside the business. He created a more attractive menu, adding a photo and flavor description for each popsicle. Seattle Pops often receives massive catering orders from large companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Uber, and Facebook, so promoting online ordering was crucial. Aidan also added new pages for ingredients, methods, and the Seattle Pops team.

The project was a huge learning experience for Aidan. “I did not have prior web design experience before I took Tor’s DTC 355 class,” he said. “Everything I learned about HTML, CSS, and web design came from Tor.”

Aidan first connected with Seattle Pops two years ago, during the summer of 2018. He lived close to the brick and mortar store, which made it easy for him to commute to work. Ever since, Aidan has been spending his summers as a chef producing popsicles in the kitchen. He has also been working as a Social Media Manager for the business since the summer of 2019, so he was familiar with the brand’s online presence before taking on the redesign. It is nice to see a DTC student using their skills to move up the (popsicle stick) ladder.