Tony's
Chocolonely
Front‑end development for Tony's Chocolonely's custom website and Chocoshop rebuild, using a standalone Node.js application to produce highly animated and dynamic templates for integration into Laravel.
In Detail
New vs. Old
The previous Tony's website had served the company well, but by 2017 it was showing its age. It was slow to load, non‑responsive, and based on a simple WordPress theme that no longer matched the scale, personality, or customer expectations of the brand.
The replacement site introduced a more flexible, animated front‑end built around Tony's distinctive visual identity, mission‑led content, and growing e‑commerce requirements.
A Colourful, Animated Experience
The website was designed around a three‑panel structure: mission content to the left in red, the Chocoshop to the right in white, and the main homepage in blue. Page transitions helped create the feeling of moving laterally between those areas, supported by large arrow‑based navigation patterns.
Beyond the page transitions, GSAP animation brought movement into the wider interface, with scroll and mouse interactions used to make the site 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 so the colour and irregular shape of the chocolate bars could carry the visual identity.
Product listing pages included a distinctive product spinner, followed by a more conventional product grid, filters, and the ability to add items to basket directly from the listing page.
Products in Detail
Product detail pages were responsively optimised around product imagery, bar size, purchase options, and brand messaging, keeping the e‑commerce journey clear without losing Tony's 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 support a serious, heavy‑hitting message without losing the brand's playful character, using JavaScript‑driven stop‑frame animation to add movement and emphasis.
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John Kavanagh is one of the most open‑minded developers I have ever worked with. His appreciation of great creative work, his enthusiasm and 'anything is possible' attitude is always a breath of fresh air. I worked with him on several successful projects in our days at McCann Worldgroup. Since then we have collaborated on many freelance projects and he's always been super efficient and effective, combining a great work ethic with immense talent. If I ever have a creative digital project which needed bringing to life, John is the first developer I call on."
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John Kavanagh is one of the most professional developers I have worked with. Add to this a synergy between some of the values which Underwired holds in high regard (perfectionism, creativity in all skillets and future facing) and you have someone I wouldn't hesitate to recommend for front‑end development work."
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Worked with John Kavanagh on a big Nando’s project, moving a legacy site off of Drupal and onto Vercel and Next.js.
His work and attitude are both stellar! Highly recommended."
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John Kavanagh is a passionate and highly skilled developer with a wonderful ability to calmly concede downward business pressures whilst pragmatically delivering the project at hand.
John is never fazed by project management/requirement issues as are common in these environments, instead, he always finds a way to deliver value to both the end consumer and the business. It's not always easy to remain level‑headed and calm on high‑pressure projects but John's good nature and professionalism invariably remain infallible. It's an absolute pleasure working with him."
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John Kavanagh is an incredibly talented and efficient developer with great expertise in Gatsby and Contentful. He is incredibly personable and also always willing to share his knowledge. I also appreciated his ability to communicate openly and in a way that allowed me to find a way forward with him.
It was a pleasure to work with John and I would welcome another opportunity to work with him again!"
