unnecessary beauty

Sub-Domain Headers

Categories: Web • Personal

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When starting on the redesign of my personal website I knew early on that I wanted to unify the different sub-domains a lot better.  The idea being that I would provide all the sites with a more unified style especially in the header while still keeping it obvious that each sub-domain was functionally its own site (or not its own as is the case with the www, contact, and search sub-domains).  I wasn’t sure how to do this at first but became inspired by Lingua Grafica after flipping through it at Powell’s Books in downtown Portland.

With that inspiration I proceeded to draw what eventually became the headers for each sub-domain on this site.  They went through entirely too many revisions to describe them all here.  However, it is worth noting that most of the headers started out much more complicated and ended up being broken down into the lines and shapes I felt were necessary. 

I’m a minimalist at heart and that especially shows in the work I create for myself.

Reel Reminiscence

Categories: Logos • Web

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Logo design and website for new video editing service.

This client wanted a logo that explicitly communicated what they did. This was the first try I made at the logo and they were completely happy with it. Probably the first time I never needed to make revisions.

The website was done much later.  It follows web-standards and every page in the site validates perfectly.  The site doesn’t have many of the capabilities I often give my sites because the client did not have the means to pay for those abilities.  The only PHP code in the site is a simple hit counter and a random image selector for the flower pictures.

There is also a simple email form on the contact page.

I experimented with the rounded corners quite a bit on this site.  The pictures of the flowers actually have no border.  The border is all done using CSS background images.  And the flower picture is a background image placed below those.  This allows the window to be resized and still have the same rounded corner outline on the flower pictures as the rest of the content.

The site will eventually include embedded Quicktime video examples of the client’s work.  The video will be up when I am provided with the material to encode for the web.

Reel Reminiscence Website

Chatham School District

Categories: Web

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This web design project was for a school district in Southeast Alaska.

The project requirements and much of the design elements were decided by a committee of teachers and staff within the district and I was charged with carrying out their decisions. 

The first requirement was that they wanted a graphical splash page that showed where the various sites in the district were.  They also wanted a picture to pop up when mousing over a site to show the school and a little information about the community.  You can see this illustrated in the first picture.

Second, the individual sites should be easily updated by teachers and staff.  This was solved by using a PHP script and mySQL database to provide news that can be updated through a web based interface.

The third requirement was a navigation bar along the side that would be there on every site page providing links to the various pages.  The teachers wanted it to be a drop down menu and this was provided as can be seen in the second picture.

The committee wanted it to be easy for visitors to contact the teachers so I scripted a Contact Form that can be seen in the last picture.  The different teachers for each site can be selected from a pop up menu.

Other features of the site include links pages that accept user submissions, and text links along the bottom of every page to accommodate visitors using older browsers that cannot handle the javascript/dhtml drop-down menus.

Chatham School District Website