I'm Rick's secret webpon. Crap... did I just introduce myself with a pun? Sorry... I know that's against' forum ediquette... So... Right... I reinvisioned and created the new
Aromazap.com and
aromazap.com/shop. It was fun work.
I first ordered an aromazap (square) for my birthday in 2004. It was the best birthday present ever! I've introduced many people to vapor over the years and have steered people towards Zaps because they work great. They pay for themselves immediately, like in under a half year for any sort of regular indulger... But y'all here know the benefits of vapor, right? FC ... not that combustion is wrong... just ... vapor has many advantages, one of which is efficiency. One of my friends purchased something local. She found a whip vaporizer that had a heat range setting, but had a little trouble figuring out the optimal heat setting/range. I ended up replacing her other vaporizer with a Myrtlezap back in the square days (like my MZ). Even if zaps only lasted a single year they'd have paid for themselves during that time, but this MZ is only my second zap in over 6 years and I gave the perfectly functioning aromazap away as a gift to a friend. Sweet gift, right?
Anyway, so you can see I'm a big fan of the AZ/MZ family... I had a problem once, the MZ ran a little too cool... He sent me a 13.5V transformer for nothing to test it out... Compared to my MZ, this one still ran too cool on the 13.5V. So I sent transformer and zap back and got an absolutely beautiful replacement that worked. Rick has always been polite and responsive and professional yet personal over the years so I had a pretty good idea of his character.
Reinvisioning the website was an incredibly fun task. I'd play with ideas... like an all wood background and want to puke... But out of that I got the initial inkling for doing a wood trim. Later came the connective vapor thru-theme. I wanted to infuse the site with the kind of quality I see in the zaps. The wood trim is actually the front of _my_ MZ from 2 different angles (one for site other for cart). I may have gone a little too literal with infusing the website with the product.
I'm pleased to say I created the website. I hope y'all like it.
@disco: I added some glow and shadow effects for IE users. I totally agree that the main navigation was unreadable without something to help clarify it against the wood strip background. I tested in everything but IE once I had the basic layout done but (stupidly) assumed that IE would support the 12 year old CSS2 specifications. Either way I found a fall-back for IE that's acceptable. It's not as smooth as FF/Chrome/Safari... but at least a third of the web is no longer neglected. BTW, IE8 still does not support text-shadow.
@all: I'm open to suggestions about how to help first-time visitors understand that there's a shopping cart site and a main/content site. I change up the woodgrain and background, but the initial feedback seems to indicate that, while this my be clever, it is not clear.