Win NEW clients and wow current clients with
CHAMELEON DIY (Design It Yourself)
(available NOW!)
Our Pre-MSPA announcement schedule:
Previous: SASSIE X AV Media Service Previous: IC Pro (register here) #1: Shopper Flex Report
#2: Admin Dashboard version 2#3: Chameleon Design-It-Yourself #4: GeoVerify & Photo DNA (upcoming)
#5: Chameleon Dashboards (upcoming)
Nothing makes a more dramatic statement to a client than seeing their shops custom designed to their corporate look and feel.
Nothing differentiates you from the competition to a sales prospect more than showing a demo of your system with a visual design they’ve never seen anywhere else.
In the past you needed to manage expensive and lengthy custom projects through us to get these custom designs finished, but now with Chameleon DIY you can have any CSS experienced web designer knock one out for you in record time.
Because Chameleon is based on universal CSS web design standards, virtually any EXPERIENCED web designer can develop chameleon themes for you! As an experiment, we challenged our brand new Project Manager Michelle Remeny to design a brand new Chameleon theme in one afternoon, even though it was just her FOURTH day working for us!
So with virtually no SASSIE experience (but several years of design experience), Michelle was able to change our standard “BAR” theme into a “FURNITURE STORE” theme:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
The process for creating a custom theme involves 3 steps
(detailed instruction are located at : http://marketing.sassieshop.com/chameleon/diyinstructions.php)
- Pick from our existing themes (http://marketing.sassieshop.com/chameleon/themegallery.php) and request a corresponding “DIY KIT” in the tracker.
- Open the DIY KIT zip file and edit ONLY the provided CSS file (editing any other files will result in a broken theme) and add any image files you need for your theme. You’ll be able to view what the theme looks like as you work on it.
- Zip up the file and tracker it back to us. We’ll install it for you.
Some tips/caveats:
1. We do NOT recommend that inexperienced designers try to “learn CSS on the job” with Chameleon Themes. A quick test for a designer is to have them view one of our original css files (http://marketing.sassieshop.com/chameleon/bank_orig.css). If a designer does not immediately understand the CSS code on that page, then it’s almost certainly going to be too difficult for him/her to generate reliable cross browser Chameleon themes.
2. We can ONLY provide LIMITED technical assistance to DIY projects. While we can verify that the overall file structure and file paths are correct we DO NOT have the qualifications to troubleshoot the actual CSS code or fix any cross browser issues.
3. It’s vitally important to follow the instructions at http://marketing.sassieshop.com/chameleon/diyinstructions.php to guarantee future compatibility. We WILL be upgrading the foundation of Chameleon continually and we are not responsible for sudden changes in themes that do not follow the guidelines listed there.
Some parting thoughts:
1. We will still do custom themes via our normal customization process (prices starting at $500) but cannot guarantee any specific availability or turnaround time. You’ll almost certainly get lower prices and faster turnaround working directly with a designer.
2. We will be assembling a “Chameleon Designer’s Gallery” in the next month or so where you can view themes created by independent CSS designers and contract with them directly.
3. The SASSIE Chameleon himself is not immune to customization! Behold the new sponsor of the Geekhouse CycloCross team (of which our lead Chameleon programmer Tristan Schneiter is a suicidal member of) !
Best wishes, John Hsu Managing Partner
SurfMerchants LLC
Need Emergency SASSIE Support? : Please visit http://status.sassieshop.com for the latest status updates and contact information.