A new site, a new system, a new design
So here we are again, creating a new look and feel to the site, as well a new name. I felt that a name change was necessary, to coincide with the new roles that I want my site to have. Like before the site will be used as my design portfolio and I have included sections like about and hire us like the old site but as I am now using Wordpress to power the site it’s going to be so much easier to upload new designs, and I might actually be motivated to put new designs up, as well as put up the older stuff with large images.
The second reason for creating a blog type system is to give back to the design community in what small way that I can. The goal is the start producing a design tutorial once a month, whether it be a Photoshop tut, illustrator tut or just a general design tut, which will be pretty freak’n awesome. I’ll also be posting a list of resources for designers and graphic artists to get inspirations from, get the latest in the design world and all that type of thing.
So as I start figuring out all this Wordpress theme stuff, the site is going to probably have some random elements looking a bit out of place, but they will be addressed quickly.
So to kick off the new site, here is the latest website design by yours truly.
The Brief: This site design was ordered by a big wave surfer, Mark Visser, who live here on the Sunshine Coast. The site was contracted to be designed and constructed by Always Interactive, whom I am currently working for, and it came to me to design the site. Mark wanted to basically have that Nutra-grain looking site, with big metal doors, and other cool looking stuff like that. He was pretty much open otherwise to what it was going to look like in terms of layout and all that. Though he did stress the importance of being able to see the sponsors and the advertisements they are going to put on the site.
Challenges: The biggest challenge with the site design was figuring out how to make big metal steel doors, and other metal looking parts without using stock pictures, or other types of photo manipulations. As our budget at the company doesn’t allow for using too much of that type of thing I had to construct it all using Photoshop and its arsenal.
Lessons: The lesson learnt form this project would have been to plan out what you want the look and feel of the website or whatever it is you are designing before you even start trying to construct it. For less complicated site it maybe easier to get away with, yet with a site like this, where you have individual little parts that all have different looks about them, you need to really sit down and work out on paper if they will all work together to create a unified design.
This design was the most fun I’ve had working on a website. Currently it’s still under construction, but when it’s finished, I’ll shoot through the link.
Happy hunting
