The challenge
Gulf Island Automotive has fixed cars on Rainbow Road since the garage was built in 1996. Jesse and Rachel Dawes took it over from Rachel’s parents, Mike and Noella Fraser of Mike’s Repair, in 2018. Jesse has 25 years in the trade and has been Red Seal certified since 2009. The shop has four bays, one of them for trucks and motorhomes up to 27 feet long, and a 14,000 lb lift. It is a BC Government certified vehicle inspection facility and the main service provider for BC Transit on the island, and it has a soft spot for classic cars and old trucks.
The shop has been busy for ten years, so a website was never the urgent thing. Jesse wanted one that showed what the shop works on, its hours and where it is on Rainbow Road, with a simple way to ask for an appointment. He wanted it done for him, and he wanted to be able to change the words himself.
What I built
The shop’s lettering is hand-painted on the door of Jesse’s red tow truck: GULF ISLAND in an arch, a little wrecker, and “Automotive Ltd.” in script. I traced it from the artwork he sent, so the mark at the top and bottom of every page is the real lettering, not a font. The site takes the truck door’s colours: door red, cream type with an ink outline, and the lettering’s gold only where a visitor’s pointer or keyboard is. The big headings are sign-painted the same way, in capitals with a gold drop shade.
The first screen says what the shop is and gives the phone number, set like the sign on the office. Along the bottom is a row of shop bays. Each bay’s door rolls up on one of Jesse’s own photos, and each bay leads to its page: repairs and maintenance, tires and balancing, bigger trucks and RVs, and classics and old iron. Further down, the shop’s story sits beside a photo of Jesse, Rachel, the kids and the dog that Jesse sent in.
Each kind of work has a page of its own, with what the shop does and Jesse’s photos from the shop floor, and the phone number and an appointment button at the foot of every page. The trucks page opens on a BC Transit bus up on the lift.
The appointment request asks for a name, a phone number, what they drive, what it’s doing and when suits them, and it lands in the shop’s inbox. Beside it are the hours, the address with directions and the phone number, for anyone who would rather call.
The result
giauto.ca went live on November 4, a week after Jesse first wrote back. He picked the short address himself that morning. That afternoon he signed in to the editor and rewrote the shop’s story in his own words, and every change he saves is live in about a minute. His Facebook page now links to the site.
“Its looking awesome! I’m pumped!”
— Jesse Dawes, Gulf Island Automotive
