David Wilkinson logo, a lower-case "d" in the shape of a ring with a red stone setting.

David Wilkinson Website

Project
  • Completed: August 2022
  • Status: Coming Soon
Screenshot of David's site, featuring a large photo of his hand holding tweezers while a torch is used on some metal pieces. Overlapping the photo from below, a series of cards are arranged horizontally with photos of jewelry in a circle at the top of each card. The header has a swoopy shape, with a menu icon on the right and a logo on the left.

Back in 2014, I created a 3D model for an engagement ring based on the hookshot from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I am not a jeweler, so luckily I found someone local who uses 3D modeling and 3D printing as part of his normal process: David Wilkinson.

We kept in touch after that, and eventually David contacted me about helping him get a website up. I got my wife Jack Watson involved to handle the design and wireframes, parts of which were livestreamed in 2021: wireframes part 1, wireframes part 2, art part 1, art part 2.

I built the site as a hybrid theme, utilizing the block editor for page and post content, as well as some custom blocks, particularly for displaying carousels of images and other stylized elements. The first image above of the home page includes one of these custom blocks, a carousel of cards that feature individual pieces that link to more information. Below, another custom block handles displaying collections in a diamond grid pattern.

The wavy shapes were a fun challenge in the context of the block editor. I accomplished this with SVG clip paths so that a group block variation can add the shapes above and below while utilizing the user-selected background image.

Screenshot of the block editor, demonstrating the wavy group block variations with different custom background colors

David is still in the process of populating the site with his content, so all of the screenshots you see here are using dummy content (if that wasn’t obvious). I’ll update this page once the site is live.

I alluded to this website on episode 19 of the In The Loop podcast with special guest Ryan Welcher. We discussed strategies for handling something like a testimonials block (visible in the block inserter above) which would normally be part of a template instead of a thing you have to remember to add as a design element. This is basically solved with the site editor, though.