A 30-year catalog, finally searchable
Nearly 200 pieces built up over three decades were scattered across an old site, a blog and photo albums. They now live in one shop, sorted by category with live counts.
Concept build · Armour & weapons workshop
South Tower Armouring Guild
I met their team at Ottawa Comiccon and they mentioned the shop's website was overdue for a rebuild. Their real site still runs, but the padlock is gone — the certificate no longer renews, so most browsers refuse to load it securely. I built a full replacement from their own catalog and workshop photos to show what it could look like instead.
Scroll inside the frame to explore the page
The brief I gave myself
Thirty years of real work, no secure front door.
A working armoury with a real catalog and a real history, sitting behind a browser warning most people won't click past.
South Tower has hand-forged plate armour to measure from a shop in Metcalfe, just south of Ottawa, since 1995, when founder Bill Fedun, an RCAF veteran, built his own harness because he couldn't find one that fit. They also bring swords, knives and axes to Ottawa Comiccon and FAN EXPO Canada every year, and run a sword-fighting school. Bill passed in 2014; his apprentices have run the guild since, to the same standard.
Their existing site is a WordPress install on an outdated PHP version whose security certificate has lapsed, so it loads over plain HTTP or not at all in most browsers. Its event listings stop in 2018. I couldn't fix the old site without their access, so I built a full replacement instead, using their own real product photos, workshop process shots and founder story, pulled from the old site, their Google Photos albums and their blog.
What I built
- Their whole catalog, properly organized193 real products across armour, swords, knives, axes and shields, each with its own page, sorted into a shop that filters and actually works on a phone.
- A site that loads securelyStatic pages served over real HTTPS, so there's no certificate warning standing between a visitor and the shop.
- A hero that shows the craftTrue 4K film of a blacksmith forging steel on an anvil, not a stock photo of a knight, credited in the page copy since it isn't the guild's own footage.
- Room for the whole businessA custom-armour page that walks through their process and takes quote requests, the fighting school, an events page for their convention dates, and the founder's story.
- Nothing inventedArmour prices are the guild's own published rates; weapon prices are marked as a guide pending confirmation. No made-up reviews, counts or countdowns.
Highlights
What makes it work.
Built to replace a broken padlock
A browser security warning is often the last thing a new customer sees before they leave. The concept fixes that on day one, with nothing else to migrate.
It can't be mistaken for theirs
The preview is kept out of search and labelled as a concept in its footer, so it can't be confused with a site the guild actually runs.
On a phone
Convention traffic is phone traffic.
Most people who see the guild's booth at Comiccon and look them up afterward are doing it from their phone in a parking lot or a hotel room, not a laptop.
- The shop reflows, it doesn't shrinkCategory tiles and product cards restack into a clean single column instead of a squeezed-down desktop layout.
- A cart that remembersItems added at the booth or on the couch stay in the cart between visits, ready when they're ready to order.
- Light on dataThe forging film is a couple of megabytes, not a multi-minute convention recap, so it plays instantly on a weak signal.
Still running on a broken padlock?
A security warning is a closed door.
If your certificate has lapsed, your host is unreachable, or your site just hasn't been touched since your last event, tell me about it. I'll show you what a rebuild could look like before you spend a cent.