This site is finally launched! I have been waiting a while to finish it up and then make it live. One reason is because it is a little different from other sites I have done. This is a very image intense site that in essence is like websites for similar musicians, but not quite
When Cos came to me for a website, the idea was to give it the same kind of look that similar musicians have, but the problem with the other sites was that it used frames and was not screen resolution friendly. To avoid the frames but still allow for a picture background, I used CSS’s overflow property for the main div, and set a height. That way if the content was longer, it would stay within the picture layout. This also allowed me to keep the width under 800px. With some PHP templates, frames were unnecessary.
Some of the cooler stuff that was done was the handwritten nav links with a CSS mouse over effect. No javascript there. But most of the fun stuff is on the back end. Cos wanted to update the news, shows and pictures. So, for the news and shows, I implemented word press. The news is the regular blog and the shows is a page created within word press; one that can be edited in word press. As for the pics, with flickr and some javascript, the pics on the site get updated, and all of the pics have a nice set up.
All in all, I am very happy with the way the site came out, and Cos is too! You can visit the site here. Later!
posted on January 14th, 2006 in Design, Portfolio| No Comments »
A new Featured Project. Bill Conroy is running in my district for Supreme Court Justice (of my district). He came to me asking for a site design for what he had already laid out page wise. After looking at some politicians’ websites, I noticed that a lot of these sites were simple, but not bad looking- they had a good balance of images and text. So I decided I would shoot for that too (considering that’s what I normally do). It was a little difficult to add a good mix of images, however, because he does not have photos from public events. That might change, and I would be glad to add them where I can, but back to the design.
For the banner, I went with a serif text to give kind of the elegant look that said ‘Supreme Court’. To drive that home even further, I added Lady Justice. The other main component of the banner is a map of the counties he will represent. I felt that not only did it look good, but it was also informative. The client also wanted the American Flag, which I added in the background at an opacity of 75%.
Getting to the layout, I wanted something, as I mentioned before, simple and informative. The information was not a problem, as all of it was provided to me. I decided to go with a left side navigation in a Georgia font keeping with a serif theme for something elegant. On the right I added a header to each page- and to make it better the image is just a background with a hidden header. I did this for 2 reasons. If someone has CSS disabled, they will not see an image block, they will see an actual header. Also, this is for Search Engine Optimization. Google does searching based on headers. So adding hidden headers allows me to add the design I want, but still makes the site come up in a google search. I also used only divs- no tables, all divs. Tables are slowly being phased out of web design, so I’m trying to employ new ways of organizing data. With CSS it’s very easy too.
After doing that, I did my normal design routines. PHP template, ul for navigation, verdana font for easy readability, etc. I’m glad to say the client is very happy with the site, as am I. Visit the Site
posted on September 29th, 2005 in Design, Portfolio, Websites| No Comments »
