Since the family acquired Cooper Gallery in Bideford just before Christmas, we’ve all been working extremely hard over the last few months to build the business up from near-to-nothing.

My mother - a very creative and ambitious woman keen to start her own business - had the responsibility of managing the gallery, including establishing the company objectives, building up a new catalogue of artwork, as well as get to grips with the running of a gallery. Needless to say, she has been working endless hours through the Winter months in time for the fast approaching peak Spring season.

My sister - who has firmly established herself as an outstanding graphic designer, working alongside some of the most influential business people in the UK - was responsible for creating a striking and appropriate brand, including production of all the necessary merchandise such as signs, letter heading and business cards.

Myself - I was to take responsibility of the online presence for the gallery. Knowing the previous website was doing very little for the gallery, the challenge was to create a simple and elegant website that was easy for my mother to manage, complimenting the brand my sister developed and - most important of all - generate more business for the gallery using whatever techniques were available at a low cost.

After several months working between the three of us, the new Cooper Gallery website was launched earlier today. For further information of the first release, I’ve documented the process we went through in my online portfolio.

Many improvements are planned for the website over the next year, including an initiative to sell items via eBay in an attempt to get maximum exposure for the artwork and gallery, but we are all extremely happy with the first phase of the website.