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I am so excited and relieved to finally be finished with my website overhaul for work! I started work on it in earnest in mid July, with many breaks in between as I had to switch to other projects.
The old website used tables and ugly out of date code with a bland layout, tiny project photos, ugly feature images, colors that didn't complement the company's logo and identity, and an unclear focus that confused potential clients. Left, old homepage, right, old service page.
My goals were to:
I got to try a bunch of things I hadn't gotten to before, including sIFR text replacement, using php to construct the pages, and a little bit of fine-tuning javascript add ons (gallery slideshow and scrollable project list).
I started off thinking about the site's structure, and reorganized the division of projects to be more logical to laypeople like myself. We discussed what new pages we wanted to add - a blog and a page about our sustainable practices.
To begin, I designed the homepage, which grew from the selected option (below) to the final page at watershedco.com. Funnily, I got stuck around permutation 4 for quite a while while I moved on to designing the service and project pages.
Final homepage (screen capture in firefox 3):
When I had a good feel for how the homepage would look, I started designing the subpages. I divided the meat of the site into sections - wetlands, streams, planning, etc, and each of those sections has a landing page listing services and projects.
Final service page (screen capture in firefox 3):
I started gathering content, since I wanted a description, statistics, and photo slideshow for each project. I wound up writing more myself than I thought I would at first. Also, I had to research options for the features I wanted - photo slideshow, text replacement, and a way to display projects. Originally we had been going to stick with our old webhost, which support asp - but not, I discovered after spending hours teaching myself about master pages, asp.net. Terrible, ancient hosting. Thankfully I convinced my boss to upgrade our hosting. That way I got to use .php instead, which I hadn't used before but now wholeheartedly embrace.
Finally, writing the code (which I prefer to do from scratch), testing, creating styles for print, mobile, and iphone viewing, and the launch!
The old website used tables and ugly out of date code with a bland layout, tiny project photos, ugly feature images, colors that didn't complement the company's logo and identity, and an unclear focus that confused potential clients. Left, old homepage, right, old service page.
My goals were to:
- improve SEO,
- develop a style complementary to the company's identity,
- refocus content to more accurately reflect our work,
- update the code to be cleaner, easier to update, and adherent to current webstandards.
I got to try a bunch of things I hadn't gotten to before, including sIFR text replacement, using php to construct the pages, and a little bit of fine-tuning javascript add ons (gallery slideshow and scrollable project list).
I started off thinking about the site's structure, and reorganized the division of projects to be more logical to laypeople like myself. We discussed what new pages we wanted to add - a blog and a page about our sustainable practices.
To begin, I designed the homepage, which grew from the selected option (below) to the final page at watershedco.com. Funnily, I got stuck around permutation 4 for quite a while while I moved on to designing the service and project pages.
Final homepage (screen capture in firefox 3):
When I had a good feel for how the homepage would look, I started designing the subpages. I divided the meat of the site into sections - wetlands, streams, planning, etc, and each of those sections has a landing page listing services and projects.
Final service page (screen capture in firefox 3):
I started gathering content, since I wanted a description, statistics, and photo slideshow for each project. I wound up writing more myself than I thought I would at first. Also, I had to research options for the features I wanted - photo slideshow, text replacement, and a way to display projects. Originally we had been going to stick with our old webhost, which support asp - but not, I discovered after spending hours teaching myself about master pages, asp.net. Terrible, ancient hosting. Thankfully I convinced my boss to upgrade our hosting. That way I got to use .php instead, which I hadn't used before but now wholeheartedly embrace.
Finally, writing the code (which I prefer to do from scratch), testing, creating styles for print, mobile, and iphone viewing, and the launch!
I've never done any logo design, but in preparation for the launch of my etsy shop, I needed a logo / identity!
The jewelry I make ranges from fun and modern to old-fashioned Victorian & Steampunk, but I feel it's all quite original, so I wanted something that would reflect that range.
My favorite color combination is hot pink and yellow, so I thought that would pull in the fun feeling of my jewelry. I tried to imply 'classic' in a couple different ways - creating an old style initial 'stamp' with cursive K, using a beautiful serif and traditional quatrefoil shape. (The first option below didn't quite get there, although of the three I feel it's the strongest mark.)
The first option was vetoed because hearts aren't really my thing and the 'k' didn't fit. The third option was vetoed because (as Robin rightly pointed out) it evokes quilting. The second option, though flawed, had the feel I wanted.
For revisions, I needed to revise the design to work at small sizes as well as the current large size. I liked the text from the first option above best, so I pulled that in. Moving the text off the quatrefoil made it feel like it was missing something. I came up with this:
Although this would reproduce well at small sizes, it feels too chunky to me, and most of the things I make are more feminine. I also thought that for printing purposes I should make something flat / cut the gradient. I started playing around and came up with something completely different:
I played around some more and came up with a wide version that I think I prefer:
The jewelry I make ranges from fun and modern to old-fashioned Victorian & Steampunk, but I feel it's all quite original, so I wanted something that would reflect that range.
My favorite color combination is hot pink and yellow, so I thought that would pull in the fun feeling of my jewelry. I tried to imply 'classic' in a couple different ways - creating an old style initial 'stamp' with cursive K, using a beautiful serif and traditional quatrefoil shape. (The first option below didn't quite get there, although of the three I feel it's the strongest mark.)
The first option was vetoed because hearts aren't really my thing and the 'k' didn't fit. The third option was vetoed because (as Robin rightly pointed out) it evokes quilting. The second option, though flawed, had the feel I wanted.
For revisions, I needed to revise the design to work at small sizes as well as the current large size. I liked the text from the first option above best, so I pulled that in. Moving the text off the quatrefoil made it feel like it was missing something. I came up with this:
Although this would reproduce well at small sizes, it feels too chunky to me, and most of the things I make are more feminine. I also thought that for printing purposes I should make something flat / cut the gradient. I started playing around and came up with something completely different:
I played around some more and came up with a wide version that I think I prefer:
Labels: design, in_progress, jewelry, project
Mom got me a new earring rack, huzzah! Apparently I have a lot of earrings, I've already filled it pretty much completely up! But I still think it's time to make new... Of these, I made 35 pairs, bought 18, and was given 42.
I just finished up another fun, time-consuming graphic design class - this time for the web! We designed new portfolio sites (at last, tracydurnell.com will have different content than my blog! well, as soon as I finish coding...) and redesigned a random Hawaiian coffee-seller's website. Here's my homepage design for em:
In July I took CJ white-water rafting in eastern WA. I couldn't sleep the night before because I was so worried from the last time I went rafting (raft tipped, threw us all out in a big rapid with the river super flippin high - water so cold it knocked the air out of you - fend for yourself swim for the other raft look for parents later! - lost one of my tevas) but it turned out to be totally tame because I booked so late in the year. Random photography companies take pictures as you go down the rapids - I'm Rivers Inc Boat 1 7-12 if the link doesn't work.
How I know I should be a scientist: I <3 data! Here's a sweet chart comparing how different people spend their days, allowing you to compare what percent of Americans are working vs. sleeping, eating, watching TV, etc at any given moment of the day. And the site Daytum lets you keep track of random personal data like "miles walked" or "movies watched" or "drinks drank" or whatever the hell you want to keep track of. I can't decide what I want to track, so I haven't started yet!
Zomg.
I just finished up another fun, time-consuming graphic design class - this time for the web! We designed new portfolio sites (at last, tracydurnell.com will have different content than my blog! well, as soon as I finish coding...) and redesigned a random Hawaiian coffee-seller's website. Here's my homepage design for em:
In July I took CJ white-water rafting in eastern WA. I couldn't sleep the night before because I was so worried from the last time I went rafting (raft tipped, threw us all out in a big rapid with the river super flippin high - water so cold it knocked the air out of you - fend for yourself swim for the other raft look for parents later! - lost one of my tevas) but it turned out to be totally tame because I booked so late in the year. Random photography companies take pictures as you go down the rapids - I'm Rivers Inc Boat 1 7-12 if the link doesn't work.
How I know I should be a scientist: I <3 data! Here's a sweet chart comparing how different people spend their days, allowing you to compare what percent of Americans are working vs. sleeping, eating, watching TV, etc at any given moment of the day. And the site Daytum lets you keep track of random personal data like "miles walked" or "movies watched" or "drinks drank" or whatever the hell you want to keep track of. I can't decide what I want to track, so I haven't started yet!
Zomg.
Labels: adventure, design, random
I just finished a graphic design class at BCC I mean Bellevue College, which was a load of fun! Also a TON of work. I designed 3 brochures, 2 on Bali and 1 as a personal cookbook (they said my food photography needs improvement...fair enough.) For my themes, I picked an ecotourism Bali brochure (12pp), an "adventure" packet aimed at college age kids (8pp) (one spread below), and a fifties-themed cookbook featuring dishes ranked by the amount of dirty dishes they generate.
I have been utterly exhausted from this class for the past 2-3 weeks (it was a 6 week class). But now that it's done, I have time to start a new project! ;D
My new project is going to be coming up with a curriculum to teach myself more about different varieties of ecology, get back into scientific reading, try and figure out if grad school in ecology is something I want, and what flavor of ecology if so. Also I need to take the GRE, so studying for that will be tied in. Wheeee!
I have been utterly exhausted from this class for the past 2-3 weeks (it was a 6 week class). But now that it's done, I have time to start a new project! ;D
My new project is going to be coming up with a curriculum to teach myself more about different varieties of ecology, get back into scientific reading, try and figure out if grad school in ecology is something I want, and what flavor of ecology if so. Also I need to take the GRE, so studying for that will be tied in. Wheeee!
Labels: design, news, project, science, self_improvement
