Tony's
Chocolonely
Front‑end development for Tony's Chocolonely's website and Chocoshop rebuild, using Node.js, Sass, and GSAP to create animated templates for integration into Laravel.
In Detail
New vs. Old
By 2017, Tony's original WordPress website no longer reflected the scale or personality of the brand, and its non‑responsive, slow‑loading front end had become increasingly limiting.
The replacement introduced a far more flexible, animated experience built around Tony's distinctive visual identity, mission‑led content, and growing e‑commerce requirements.
A Colourful, Animated Experience
The website was structured around three distinct areas: mission content to the left in red, the Chocoshop to the right in white, and the main homepage in blue. Large arrow‑based navigation and animated page transitions created the feeling of moving laterally between them.
GSAP animation extended that sense of movement across the wider interface, with scroll and mouse interactions helping the digital experience feel closer to Tony's physical brand world.
The Chocoshop
The Chocoshop balanced product discovery with Tony's wider brand messaging. Product listing and product detail pages used a cleaner white background, allowing the colour and irregular shape of the chocolate bars to carry the visual identity.
Product listing pages combined a distinctive product spinner with a more conventional grid, filtering, and direct add‑to‑basket functionality.
Products in Detail
Product detail pages were responsively designed around product imagery, bar size, purchase options, and brand messaging, keeping the buying journey clear without losing Tony's distinctive campaign‑led tone.
Fun Alongside a Serious Message
The 'Our Mission' page gave visitors a deeper view of Tony's work against exploitation in the cocoa industry. The challenge was to communicate a serious, hard‑hitting message without losing the brand's playful character, using JavaScript‑driven stop‑frame animation to add movement and emphasis.
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It's been a pleasure to work with John Kavanagh in the web team at Nando’s. He's a top professional who has prided himself in bringing my designs to life with a high standard since day one. He has a great eye for detail with a clear understanding of user‑centric thinking and is always willing to give great suggestions from a technical standpoint.
I have also really appreciated his positive energy which gives a great lift to the team at every stand up. Any team would be lucky to work with him, as I have experienced myself!"
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John Kavanagh was undoubtedly the best UI developer on the programme (often carrying the burden of his team) and played a crucial role in rebuilding the look and feel of the bank's global online platforms. John was always articulate, willing to speak his mind, helpful and always did an amazing job ‑ he clearly takes immense pride in his work (and rightly so!). His attention to detail and perfectionist attitude helped produce a product that we could be proud of, despite the extremely difficult environment we had to work in.
John would suit any senior or lead UI developer roles and I would have no hesitation in recommending him."
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John Kavanagh is one of the best front‑end developers I've had the pleasure of working with. Incredibly knowledgeable, great attention to detail – he understands design and why it's important to get it right, and he's also very experienced coding for accessibility. Always professional but with a great sense of fun, John would be an asset to any team and project."
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I worked with John Kavanagh at AND Digital for a client focusing on the development of web pages through Gatsby and Contentful. His experience and skill definitely showed but alongside that he was enjoyable to work with. He was always available to the team in any capacity; whether that be to help get a ticket over the line or to teach new ways of doing things. My time with John has personally been a great learning experience and I hope to work with him again in the future."
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John Kavanagh is a highly intelligent and truly senior front‑end web developer, who's surprisingly well versed in the arcana of CSS. For Macmillan he was initially churning out static templates on an SCSS BEM architecture, but soon moved on to managing the team (three developers), assigning and tracking tasks using a Trello board he introduced, and helping me nudge the team towards an integrated, Web Components based production pipeline. I enjoyed John's productivity and attitude, and I very much look forward to working together again."
