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Italian artist, Claudio Castellini made his debut in 1989 with a story for Dylan Dog, a popular Italian horror character published by Sergio Bonelli Editore. In 1991 he was the graphical creator of Nathan Never, a science-fiction series for which he drew covers until number 59. His love for technical details, influenced by artists like Neal Adams and John Buscema, was at its best in his first story for Marvel Comics, a Silver Surfer graphic novel. After covers for Comic Powers Unlimited and Elektra Magazine, a stint on Fantastic Four Unlimited (1993-1995), he worked to the crossover Marvel vs. DC, which made him popular to the American audience. Castellini's latest works include Spider-Man, Conan the Barbarian and Batman: Gotham Knights. Claudio Castellini's American artist representative, Sal Abbinanti approached Integrated Web Solutions in January of 2007 to create a web site for Claudio which would showcase his artwork past and present as well as provide a home to original art sales on an ongoing basis. "Claudio's style is one that American audiences have gravitated to since his early work for Marvel Comics here in the United States," said Abbinanti, "in this particular case, we knew that if we put something together, the fans would flock to it given his popularity." "We approached this project the way we typically do in the case of any artist or photographer. The images tend to sell themselves and as a designer (whether it be print or web for that matter) really needs to check their own ego at the door and let the images that the artist creates, do the talking," said Integrated Web Solutions Creative Director, John Schwarberg. "We were fortunate, in Claudio's case to have a large amount of colored images so we went with a rather subdued color scheme for the site so that the color within the images themselves would pop that much more. Past that, it was really a matter of designing a navigation schema that would work, was easy to use and would be extensible in the future." The site was built over a two week period and then tied into the backend databasing that was in use for news functionality and gallery functionality on www.comicbookpros.com. As all of Sal Abbinanti's artists are reflected in the Comic Book Pros portal site, it was imperative that Castellini be included in that process. "When we built comicbookpros.com, it was done with an eye towards long term growth and expansion, Claudio Castellini's web site is a good example of a business expanding and in those cases, the web site needs to expand as well," said Schwarberg. "Integrated Web Solutions did a wonderful job as always both in terms of the design and putting my client's art work in the best possible light not only for U.S. audiences but for fans worldwide. I trust IWS because I know they are thinking two or three steps ahead of me at times. They see where I'm taking my business and they plan as diligently as I do. How do you not love a vendor that does that??" said Abbinanti. | |||||||
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