Virginie Houdet artist’s website

A website that combines editorial flexibility with masterful graphic design.

www.virginiehoudet.com

Site update in 2023

In 2023, i.e. eight years after the creation of this website, due to a lack of regular updates to the CMS SPIP used, the site was brutally broken due to a security flaw (hence the importance of taking care of the site by regularly performing the suggested updates, as well as data backups). Fortunately, the host o2Switch keeps earlier versions of the sites it hosts. He was able to restore the site before the attack. I updated SPIP, and we took the opportunity to update the site’s design, starting from scratch to bring it up to current standards. Here’s a list of the main points of the update:

• SPIP is a rigorously structured database, which means that the content (texts, images, site structure) can be fully reused in the event of design changes.
• Multilingualism (French/English), important for this website, is also natively integrated into SPIP, so it has been retained, despite its eight years of age.
• I’ve switched the site’s database (where the textual data and tree structure are stored) from MySQL to SQLite, which may seem a bit odd, as SQLite is less reputable than MySQL. For a site of this size and with this type of audience, SQLite poses no performance or reliability problems (this database is used in all or almost all mobile applications, and is very tried and tested). Above all, the SQLite database is stored in a file, which is simply accessible via FTP. This means that the database is backed up at the same time as the media (photos, videos, PDFs, etc.), simplifying the operation. In the case of MySQL, this is another technical operation to be carried out. Regular backup is a crucial element in the life of a website, and the simpler it is for the site owner to do it, the more certain you are that it will be done!
• I’ve based the new webdesign on the Front End Framework Bootstrap, which is now fully proven. In 2015, it was only 2 1/2 years old. Today, it is used for 20% of websites worldwide (20 million websites). As a result, the website is fully responsive and graphically stable for many years to come.
• We’ve customized the font, and reproduced almost the same webdesign as the original, even if the “engine” is new.
• I’ve added an image gallery system.
• I added an Instagram logo for access to the artist’s Instagram page, as today’s communication requires complementarity between the website, the official source of information, and social networks, the place for interaction with the community.
• We’ve also added a news block to the home page, which didn’t exist before.
• On a more technical level, I’ve activated modern caching systems, which make the site much faster and more responsive.
• As a result of all this work, Virginie Houdet has reclaimed her website as a useful tool of the present. She undertook a major content update and refocused it on her current professional identity by reorganizing the tree structure. “As the saying goes,”every cloud has a silver lining!

Creation of the site in 2015

Challenges and objectives

• This website was to present an exhibition of paintings.
• It should also be a place to promote the work of the director, who is also an editor.
• It should be fully bilingual (all content is bilingual, with language change possible at any time).
• The painter had very specific intentions graphics.
• The budget was limited, financed by the fund professionalization Audiens.
• It was to have editorial flexibility : she has to be able herself to modify, add or move sections and articles, via a back office.

Means to achieve

• The graphic design was made by the painter herself, and built in conjunction with the technical possibilities, area by site area, with clear validation steps for the work to advance concrete way. This is a very good way, I think, to work on graphic design hand in hand with the person who will be the first affected by the site, because so it actually looks like what she wants, it is not a weird object.
• In parallel with this work, I have established a back office with the CMS SPIP, which allowed her to start publishing content into the website and work on the structure, concrete and real way, in parallel with the construction of webdesign. The advantage of this is that, during construction, the person appropriates the back office, and all design tests already receive content, they are not made in the abstract.
• And, of course, there was a dimension of training the proper use of the back office, which is very important so that good habits are took. Especially for multinlinguism, and preparation of images and videos.
• This working method step by step is inspired by Agile software development, allows the work "hand in hand with regular tests, so the functionalities are being added one by one, tested and validated (iterative, incremental and adaptative development cycle).
• This site was built over a period of three months. This may seem long, but in the end, the painter had her website, fully functional, knew perfectly how to use it well and make it evolves, and the design was exactly the one she wanted. For all these parameters filled, it is actually a rather short time!
• It was chosen not to make responsive design but a unique design that works on all platforms. So it was a real graphic work led to the use of the site on mobile phone and tablets, with the final choice of the same design, functional everywhere.

The website

www.virginiehoudet.com