AmbuGator: An Ambulance Turned Tailgating King

November 9, 2013 Case Studies, WordPress

AmbuGator: An Ambulance Turned Tailgating King

AmbuGator is an ambulance turned tailgating vehicle by University of Florida alumni John Byrnes. He’s a die-hard Florida Gators fan and wanted to express his passion by tailgating at each game with the AmbuGator.

The AmbuGator website was launched prior to the 2010-2011 college football season and has seen several changes over the three seasons since. The initial design of AmbuGator was done by myself and left much to be desired. I’m admittedly not the best designer or the best at Photoshop. Below is one of the better looking designs that wasn’t chosen.

Of the five original concepts, we decided on the final one which had an alligator in the footer ready for some Gator bait. The fish represented the upcoming football games which rotated as each game passed. I did like the way the gator’s tail came out but a facelift was needed.

Prior to the 2011-2012 season, I provided that facelift with my friend and fellow developer David Friedman. Using the Scope theme for WordPress, we customized the professional theme to fit the blue and orange of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida. Being Florida State Seminoles, this was a bit tough at first for David and I but we managed to put aside our rivalry for the AmbuGator.

Instead of football jerseys as originally planned for the schedule area, we decided to use helmets. Since we were not legally allowed to use the team logos, we put the team colors on each helmet and added a jQuery scroller to look through the entire season.

At the end of the 2012-2013 season, John won the title of “Tailgating King” from the Best Collegiate Tailgate website. He was able to redo the interior of his tailgating vehicle and get set for the 2013-2014 season. I added the new schedule and helmets to the website and the AmbuGator returned with a Gator chomp.

I’ve continued to work with John on maintaining the website and he has continued to cheer each Saturday.

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