Earlier last week we launched the PDN Photo Annual 2008 website for PDN Magazine. Its a flash based photo gallery displaying all of the winning entries as well as information on the Contest and the Judges.

Project : PDN Photo Annual 2008 Website (view)

Client : PDN Magazine (view)

The Goal

Create an easy to navigate and "sexy to look at" online photo gallery to hold all of the PDN Photo Annual 2008 winning submissions, contest info, and judges biographies.

The Problem

PDN Magazine had a small window of 2 weeks to complete the website, databases, and enter all of the content into the back-end before the new Photo Annual would hit newstands across the United States.

The Solutions

A Flash based photo gallery to allow for added interactivity and animation, a complete web based administrative interface to control content across the website, and a quick image loading framework to make navigating between images almost flawlessly on a DSL or greater connection.

Technologies Used

Right away it was decided that a PHP backend, along with a MySQL based database would be the best way to handle all of the entries from the Annual. Their previous years entries were also using these systems so the migration to a new one would have been pointless.

After determining the backend language to be used, we decided that a Flash based website would provide the best user experience for the target audience, photographers and agents.

Why Flash and not AJAX?

The short answer is that we knew flash would give us a little bit more interactive room to work with and we wouldn't have as many technical limitations or possible client-side problems that could occur. At the end of the day, all a user needed to do to use the website was have at least Flash Player 8 Plugin or better. We also decided on Flash because the dynamic generation of animation and sizing could be achieved rather quickly through code. For this aspect we used the wonderful Fuse Kit by Moses Gunesch.

What the Client Says

"DSGN + DVLP seemed like the natural choice to design this years Photo Annual online winners gallery. Daniel Schutzsmith has been key as a judge in helping us choose the most dynamic, best photography websites submitted into PDN's contests. We felt that his experience combined with his exposure to the contests made for a perfect match for this project."

- John Gimenez, Event and Contest Manager, PDN