Yesterday I put up a new splash page for wedding photographer, Jules Bianchi. We worked together on the look as she had an existing site and blog that the page needed to match and she had a very specific idea of what it should look like. Here is a screen capture of the new page: And the old one: (click for a larger view) It gave me a chance to use a new technique I had read about using "CSS Sprites". I have to thank A List Apart, a site full of amazing resources and how-to's which talked about this technique. Here is a link to their great Tutorial on CSS Sprites. I will post a more technical version of how I tweaked their code to work for this situation later, but here is a quick explanation: Normally to create all the rollover buttons on the page, eight separate images would be used and the old

Posted In: Blog, Web Design.
Tags: clients, custom web design, html, personal projects, php

Company Cafe wanted a basic informational site but needed a look that matched their business. They offer quality food service in corporate environments. So I tried to balance a color scheme that I thought would work well for a cafe with a clean, crisp layout that I might use for a more corporate setting. I also knew I wanted to use a dark solid background to bring out the colors in the pictures they sent me. They needed a custom logo and this is what I cam up with, just a simple cursive font with some buildings in the background made to fit into the header at the top of the page... They also wanted a splash page with a movie that would act as a little teaser for their company and what they do. They had some pictures and a script with the words they wanted to say, I just had

Posted In: Blog, Video, Web Design.
Tags: clients, custom web design, html, php

I had a nice surprise in my inbox today. Apparently Five Day DVD is a featured design on We Love WP (WeLoveWP.com) - a site that showcases custom Wordpress sites. Only a few days ago, I found the site and browsed all the amazing work on there, getting inspiration and ideas for my own designs. They had a section where you could submit your own site, let them know about it and if they like it, they would include it on their page. Well, I guess they did, because here it is: Five Day DVD was my first go at Wordpress and to have it noticed on a site like this means a lot. It took me so long to get it to look like it does! I have big plans for a new site which I plan to do all in Wordpress. Plus - I am working on my first custom theme, built from

Posted In: Blog, Web Design.
Tags: custom web design, html, personal projects, php, web clients, web design, WordPress