Fratello & Amico

The Fratello & Amico website is a long-time client who came to me years ago to simply restore some HTML files from a disk to a host.  The client is rarely available as the business involves long on-site assignments.  For several years, we awaited receipt of images and refreshed content.  As I felt the HTML 4.0 version was begging for hacks, I converted the site to CSS-positioned XHTML (about the last time we built a project in Dreamweaver — as a certified developer).

The client has willingly engaged me for ongoing maintenance over the years and agreed that converting to WordPress with the UDesign premium theme was prudent to make our process consistent with our client base.  I converted the site replicating the look and feel of the existing static XHTML site with a promise that I would receive larger, new images in about six months.

As it turns out, the UDesign theme became problematic when the developers completely changed everything about the theme, including eradicating their previous support forums and changing the page builder system.  As I owned many licenses, my frustration was palpable. As Fratello & Amico have been great people to work with despite no new images, but they’ve been loyal, paid invoices early and frankly just like them, I decided that since I was converting other sites from UDesign to Divi, I would do the same for them.

The lack of large images is a problem.  How could I creatively use what I had in small thumbnails and supplement them with purchased royalty-free stock images and icons to make a cohesive, contemporary design.