Magnus Jepson » Design

Redesigning my first ever project

Magnus — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:06:18 +0000

A long, long time ago, when html was html, tables were the sh*t, and hover effect on links was the hottest thing out there, I made a website. Specifically it was my first “real” project, where I would actually receive some sort of compensation, and it was for my local golf club where I actively play, Stavanger Golf Club.

The new design of Stavanger Golfklubb

So what has changed then since then? Well first of all, I actually make a living of designing websites now, and I’ve made quite a few in the 3-4 years since I did the initial design. The main reason for doing the redesign was to get the site up and running on my beloved WordPress platform. The old site was built on html, tables (yuck!) and a simple php news system (CuteNews), and it just can’t compare with the brilliance of WP.

Surprisingly, the original design has stood it’s ground all these years, at least in my eyes. So I didn’t want to drastically change the design, since the colors and layout had done so well. My main goals were simply; Re-use the color scheme, make it 960px wide and make it easier to read. The old design was lacking in the typography department because I was heavily influenced by all the Flash sites back in 05/06 that used mini fonts. I’m glad that has worn of, and I now enjoy new design trends that allow for more white space and better typography.

The old design

The design took about a day to finish in Photoshop, and the coding was done the following day. The tweaking part is what take up most of the time. The production of the site took about 4 days, and although it isn’t completely propped with content yet, it is 95% done. I was quite pleased with the end result, and that always leaves a good feeling, and gets me motivated about keeping it looking good for the years to come.

I’ve been a Busy Bee

Magnus — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:45:34 +0000

On friday evening, I had a little time to myself, so instead of doing the normal stuff (tv, movies or misbehaving in town), I decided to start up Photoshop. I know that sounds incredibly geeky, and I won’t deny that it is… but I enjoyed the heck out of it

A couple of beers later and I had a new theme designed for WooThemes, and we’re planning on releasing it sometime in December. Let me know what you think!

Using Coded Preview with design drafts

Magnus — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:05:40 +0000

I found a great tool for web designers to use with clients or just for themselves when you want to display a photoshop draft (or any image) as it would look in your browser.

The old way of doing this would be to upload a full size image and then give your client the link. This is fine and dandy, but some clients use IE7 that uses the zoom feature on images that are larger than their browser window. You also have to live with the borders around the image.

This is where Codedpreview steps in and does the job for you. It’s quite simple to upload your image and then add your background color or even a repeating background image. I just added a top navigation to my own blog today, but I wanted to see how it would look in a browser first.

Isn’t this a much better way of presenting your drafts to your clients?