If there is one thing I love more besides Manchester United, pizza, and my fiance – yes in that order – then it’s reading books. There’s just something about immersing yourself into a good book, that feeling of escapism you get when you are invested in the character – it just excites me. If you’ve ever read Shadow of the Wind then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Although, I’d like to state that not every genre excites me. Self-help books or those “How I made millions and so can you too” books are just a complete waste of time. And celebrity autobiographies when they’re under 30 – they’re just a waste of paper.

Admittedly, at 31 years of age I should have probably read more books – but I’m a slow reader. I’m currently stuck on page 204 of Game of Thrones which I’m pretty sure I started about this time last year. After watching the first 2 seasons, I thought, “right, I should read the books including book 3 before season 3 starts in April”. Nope. Didn’t happen.

My goal now is to at least get it finished by the end of the year. However, I have a tendency to get distracted and pick up other books, read them, then go back to the book I started before those books. It’s not a great method, and I certainly don’t encourage it – I’ve had to completely restart at least half a dozen books because of this. Each time this happens I try and tell myself not to do again, which I’ve been doing pretty well with, but guess what?

It has happened again.

Get a Bigger Wagon

I’m currently halfway through Get a Bigger Wagon written by Maureen Haddock. The book tells the story of [SPOILER ALERT] “the boy” and his adventures growing up in a small Saskatchewan town in the 1950s. However, there’s more to it than that. The underlying story is how these small prairie towns in the 1950s were the perfect conditions for adventurous and industrious youngsters to develop into successful entrepreneurs. This is especially true for the author’s husband – Gord – otherwise known as “the boy” in the story. But, I’ll stop there.

Like I said, I’m only halfway through – which is pretty shameful since it’s a kids book and when you see how many pages there are I should have read it in one sitting – and I don’t want to tell you too much because a) this isn’t a book review, and b) if I told you everything that happened, then where’s the fun in that? Exactly. There isn’t any. My advice would be to grab a copy – well, don’t “grab it”, you should pick it up nicely and pay for it – and read it. But… “where dost thou findst a copy?” Well… on the brand spanking new Get a Bigger Wagon website!

Anyone up for a hi-5 for that segue?

Website Design and Development

The previous  website was, shall we say outdated? In fact, take a look to see if you agree…

It was obvious that the Get a Bigger Wagon website needed a complete overhaul – from design to development – in other words “the works.” Step one was to create the new look and feel of the website, which as always begins with the design. Our design team went for a design that is reflective of the time period when the book is set – the 50s – and hence the “retro” vibe of the new website. The design team also spruced up the logo to – like I said “the works”. Once this had been completed, it was time for step 2 – creating the responsive web design layouts.

Oh yes, the new Get a Bigger Wagon is designed to be fully responsive. Got a smartphone or tablet handy? Then I encourage you to check it out on those devices. Don’t you just love how the website easily transitions itself like that? I know responsive web design is “the thing” at the moment, but it’s just such an awesome piece of technology that everyone should have it!

Once all the design work was done and dusted, the final step was the development. The new Get a Bigger Wagon website is built on a custom CMS.  With such an easy-to-use system now in place – which wasn’t apparent in the previous website – this makes the managing of the website easy for their website administrator. New and enhanced website functionality includes:

• A custom Blog featuring additional Get a Bigger Wagon stories
• Audio samples of short extracts
• Integration of a Facebook feed along with integration of links to the Get a Bigger Wagon Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest pages
• A news feed announcing up and coming Get a Bigger Wagon events, workshops, and readings.

The new website also allows users to easily find out more information about the book Get a Bigger Wagon and it’s sequelGet an Even Bigger Wagon which was published in 2012.

More information on this project – what we did and how we did it – can be viewed on our Portfolio.