a modular webpage for a company that has their sight set on the future

the background

Viru Keemia Grupp is a private Estonian large-scale industrial enterprise. They focus on oil shale mining, shale oil, combined heat and power production and even production and marketing of fine chemical products.

Because the market for the client’s field of business is in decline due to the rapidly developing world and the popularity of green energy they needed a website that would express their pursuit of success in growth, innovation and openness.

the challenge

Together with designer Oliver Oberg we created a modern functional environment, which looks amazing both on desktop monitors and on hand-held devices. Unlike the traditional development method, where we create views for all the different screen sizes separately, we approached the problem a bit differently this time around. Using a width-flexible framework, we started with the desktop views and with small efforts adjusted them to fit the design to a small screen according to the designers instructions.

It was very important to the client that it would be as easy as possible to create pages with a complex structure and with a certain design style. This particular requirement together with the unique design posed an interesting challenge for us. Creating a bunch of unique modules that intertwine with each other is apparently quite difficult. To bring this into perspective, it’s as if every module were a piece of lego and the client can stack those lego blocks on top of each other just as they see fit.

Furthermore, we implemented the news archive and the gallery structure that was previously in the old web into the new web. We also created a solution where every employee can now create posts through an online form in case something dangerous occurs in the factory. The same post system will automatically be used to report the incident to the whole in-house system as well.

We also created interactive report pages for the annual VKG yearbooks and sustainability reports that go all the way back to 2014.

what we learned?

During the project we got to practice creating a website with many different modular solutions and a complex design. As a result the administrator can now build pages on the site using section blocks exactly as they want.

We can now build web pages for different screen sizes without the need for detailed design blueprints. All you need is the basic logic and a few guidelines for the developer to start building exactly what is needed for a certain site.

When a web page that has its original content already in place on the design, it is much easier to notice special cases, which need to be taken into consideration when developing. It is convenient and much more effective compared to projects that have been built up on base case scenarios, e.g a page full of lorem ipsum text.