Utterz Website Design
About six months after the first redesign, it was decided to take the site in a new direction. The colour scheme was somewhat kept, but a lot of white space was added to give the content priority. The new design was supposed to be a bit more minimalist than the prior design. The punny cow references were all but axed, although you can still see hints of them on the FAQ page illustrations, and Bessie the mascot still makes the occasional appearance in print collateral.
One thing I focused on this design was the possibility of including ad content in the distant future as the Utterz audience grew. Hence the 728x90 pixel box up top. In the meantime, I utilised that space by highlighting Utterz content.
Utterz Booth
This booth backdrop measures 88 inches square. I repurposed some vector illustrations I had made for the site, and utilised the cow theme to provide a subtle background. Created in Illustrator.
This booth backdrop measures 88 inches square. I repurposed some vector illustrations I had made for the site, and utilised the cow theme to provide a subtle background. Created in Illustrator.
BlogFaction Site Design
GamePro wanted a redesign of their staff's blog portal at Blog Faction. The old site was structured so that the same bloggers always occupied the "above the fold" region of the webpage. This redesign focuses on posts by category, keeping the freshest posts and updates above the fold, as well as focusing on the wider gamer blogging community. The header was designed to be both new and fresh while evoking classic side scroller video games. (I admit that the two games that influenced the design were Super Mario, natch, and the lesser-known Montezuma's Revenge with Panama Joe.)
GamePro wanted a redesign of their staff's blog portal at Blog Faction. The old site was structured so that the same bloggers always occupied the "above the fold" region of the webpage. This redesign focuses on posts by category, keeping the freshest posts and updates above the fold, as well as focusing on the wider gamer blogging community. The header was designed to be both new and fresh while evoking classic side scroller video games. (I admit that the two games that influenced the design were Super Mario, natch, and the lesser-known Montezuma's Revenge with Panama Joe.)
Another consideration weighing with GamePro in the design process was CSS and standards compliance. I had to keep in mind that this site would be created entirely without HTML tables and using only CSS. When I created this page, I kept in mind the limitations and abilities of web style sheets.
In the end, this design and the redesign project were put on hiatus in favour of other projects, but this is one of my favourite projects that I worked on while at GamePro.
Games.net Site Design + Scion Skin
First of all, I designed the layout and general look and feel of the Games.net site, but I was also responsible for skinning it for various advertisers. We had an ongoing three part feature sponsorship with Scion, the car manufacturer, wherein they would sponsor various features and I would skin the site to match and create matching adverts pointing at the featured article. This skin was for their third sponsored feature, Customize Your Gaming Experience. View larger version. The ads roadblock (the 728x90 and the 300x600) were also created by me with assets provided by Scion.
First of all, I designed the layout and general look and feel of the Games.net site, but I was also responsible for skinning it for various advertisers. We had an ongoing three part feature sponsorship with Scion, the car manufacturer, wherein they would sponsor various features and I would skin the site to match and create matching adverts pointing at the featured article. This skin was for their third sponsored feature, Customize Your Gaming Experience. View larger version. The ads roadblock (the 728x90 and the 300x600) were also created by me with assets provided by Scion.
Epic Games: Unreal Championship 2 Forum Design
I was contracted to create graphics for the brand-new Unreal Championship forums for Epic Games, the creators of the Unreal gaming franchise. I was to implement the basic template, choose colours, and create graphics which would essential bracket the forum itself. Originally, I had a fixed width design implemented with graphic rollovers for navigation. However, when the test forums went up, it was soon determined that the users didn't use the graphical navigation nearly as much as the textual navigation, and what they really wanted was a variable width forum that stretched across most of the page. So the next design was made so that it could stretch from about 750 pixels wide to an infinite width if so desired.
There were two variations on the main design created: one for the Unreal Championship forums and one for the Epic forums in general. I picked teal tones for UC2's forum and blue ones for the Epic forums, and picked appropriate characters and backgrounds to integrate into each design.