Although I have been a professional web-designer since 1995, the past year and a half has been pretty barren when it comes to the web as I have been working more in a video/audio/multimedia profession. Having said that, I do miss working exclusively for the web. A year or so ago, I was pleased to be working on new disciplines but now, I do miss web design.
I do get to dabble with it every now and then on limited freelance gigs. A site I didn’t get to fully work on a couple of years ago was erotic photographer Justice Howard’s website. Justice is one of the most amazing photographers out there. I wish she had a Flickr page so that everyone here could experience the sheer quality of her work. She manages to capture colors that are so rich and vibrant. You can view her work on her website here.
I found the time to work on a new splash page for her. The above design was completed very quickly and sent as a rough concept to Justice for her approval or disapproval. She was stoked with the result, which can be viewed clearer here and will be the new entrance page to her wesbite in the next few days.
I’ve been doing some work for LA band Gods & Monsters. Frankly, I don’t know how I found the time as I haven’t touched any freelance projects for close to a year. Anyway, check out this simple (preliminary) design we’re working on. More coming real soon…
Justice Howard was one of the Visceral Industry’s first clients when we launched in July/August of this year. It is a great thrill to be working alongside one of the world’s leading erotic photographers. I had been a fan of Justice’s work for many years and always wanted a shot at working with her on any capacity. When we discussed a new website over the phone, we were both on the same wave-length about where the new site should go. I was eagerly awaiting the opportunity to begin work on the site but there were a few pending projects that needed my attention before I could begin work on Justice’s site.
Today I fired up Photoshop and got to work on a (rough) preliminary design. I had done several basic sketches back in July which were met favourably but as stated, they were just drafts and not a true indication of where the site would eventually lead. Pictured above is the concept I have been working on today. (Justice hasn’t see this yet, so the Dogmatic visitors are getting an advanced screening if you will).
Wading through Justice’s portfolio, I always like this shot so I began to peel away elements from it and use them sporadically throughout the rest of the design. I think (so far) it is a strong and powerful design and could lay the foundation nicely for the rest of the project.
Ok boys and girls, I’m gonna launch this to the real world for a few hours so you - the faithful reader can test it all out for me. (hehe there’s always an ulterior motive!) There’s still a bit of work to do but believe it or not, I am on top of it all. Please feel free to leave your comments and if anyone can help me with why the Asides titles are not showing up on the sidebar - I will be forever grateful. It’s got me absolutely stumped and I have no idea how I can fix it.
Bugwatch:
- Page feels much snappier & faster in Safari. Sluggish performance in Firefox and weird cache issues
- Asides tiles in Sidebar do not appear
- Weird alignment of Feed icons in Safari sometimes
- Weird font flickering in Firefox when selecting links
A work-in-progress: The site that won’t see the light of day
Back in September of 2003, I was contacted by South Florida’s Gods And Monsters. The guys were a young up and coming band and upon a recommendation from Universal Records sought out myself to design and develop their new site. Since September, I had developed a great working relationship with the band’s lead singer, Joshua Reed, and we proceeded to build the band’s site piece by piece. I was very proud of where the site was heading and we were all looking at a February 1, 2004 release. Today I received contact from Joshua who informed me that the band would be calling it a day. The site would, obviously, not be going ahead. It felt like I had just been kicked in the guts. I was bitterly disappointed as there had been hours and hours poured into this project. I wasn’t disappointed in the financial loss of this project - even tho the band had paid us for the work we had done so far - but I was most disappointed that this site won’t ever be completed. The entire site was being constructed in Flash - and featured some wonderful animations of various ‘insects’ and ‘beetles’ scurrying around the design at certain moments. The site was developing into something very atmospheric and I was very confident it would have been a wonderful site.
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