Designs On Fire

So busy!

2008-08-14T09:05:00.001-07:00

Wow... I've been so busy lately, I just realized that June was the last time this blog has been updated. Summer has been a busy season, I've been working on some new projects including a logo design, logo + website identity package and helping a start up photography businesses in Arkansas with a new website.

I hadn't tried Google AdWords until just a few weeks ago and I've gotten quite a response from the targeted ads running locally. I really prefer to work with local clients, I enjoy meeting each client in person to discuss their design needs.

Hopefully I'll have some time in the near future to update my blog and portfolio with the projects I'm working on!

Portfolio Update: Touch Of Grey

2008-06-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

Touch Of Grey is on the web, check out their new website: http://www.touchofgreymusic.com

We created their logo and designed the website, Doc Glatz seems quite happy with both designs. I can't wait to see the t-shirts!

Touch of Grey is a local classic rock and blues band in Springfield, Illinois. Their new website features music (mp3's), video and photos of the band. Take a look and a listen, and I guarantee you'll be pleasantly surprised.

View their performance schedule to see them live!

Portfolio Update: 1 Stop Auto Shop

2008-05-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

The new website for 1 Stop Auto Shop & Collision Center in Springfield, Illinois is live! It's been live a while actually, I just haven't had a chance to update this blog. So, without further delay... look at their new website! http://www.1stopautoshopinc.com/

The first thing you'll probably notice is a short commercial video on the homepage. It might be familiar if you've been watching the news lately. Thanks to the crew and video production experts at News Channel 20 for providing the web-ready video.

The site features plenty of info about 1 Stop service departments, including their Body Shop, Quick Lube & Mechanical services and Fleet Maintenance. Because they have five locations throughout the greater Springfield area, 1 Stop is often misinterpreted as a major chain auto repair company, like Midas or Firestone. Instead, they are a family-owned small business, the About Us gives the full story. The site also features in-store coupons so visitors browsing the site can preview big savings on oil change and detailing services.

Portfolio Update: Touch Of Grey Logo

2008-04-18T06:47:00.001-07:00

Well here it is! You are looking at the new logo for Touch Of Grey, a local classic rock and blues band in Springfield, Illinois. The guys in the band really like the design and are excited about sporting an official TOG t-shirt sometime in the near future.

Doc really wanted to have the 45 spindle in the design. He figured that any "old hippy" would recognize it immediately, bringing back fond memories of good times and good music from 45 records.

Their website design is my next project and I have a few good ideas for the site. Their site is going to be different, I imagine already that it will be a contrast to the square box mold of more traditional designs. I really like working with other artists, there is a lot of room for creative freedom. Good stuff.

Check it out in the Designs On Fire portfolio: http://www.designsonfire.com/folio/logo/

Portfolio Update: RPM

2008-04-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a new brochure design for RPM - Revelant Practical Ministry for Men. Tom Cheshire contacted us and needed a brochure that he could be proud of. He'll be traveling around the country for conferences and wanted to have some brochures handy.

The idea was to make something simple using darker colors that would appeal to a male audience. The finished product is exactly what he was looking for, Tom is so happy with this brochure. He even sent a very nice thank you note full of compliments. I'm happy when my clients are happy! We both are excited to see the printed version.

Check it out in the Designs On Fire portfolio: http://www.designsonfire.com/folio/print/

New Client: Touch Of Grey

2008-04-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

I met with the local band Touch Of Grey this week during their band practice. My father-in-law Gary Halford plays rhythm guitar in the band and I've known the rest of the band members for a couple years now. Great guys, they're like family... making music is their pride and joy. Touch Of Grey recently played a charity benefit at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in downtown Springfield for the Mini O'Beirne Crisis Nursery, it was an awesome show for a great cause.

They are a classic rock cover band with an appropriate name, if you didn't already know... Touch Of Grey is a song by the Grateful Dead. They also play the blues, and do a fine job. Seeing them live is always an experience, they put on such a great show.

I can't wait to get started on the new site and logo design. It'll be groovy, baby. Yeah.

New Client: 1 Stop Auto Shop

2008-03-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

I had a design consultation last week with Tommy Hollinshead, Jr. to discuss ideas for his company's new website. This project will be a redesign although their current site has been a continual WIP and the pages are not working correctly. It still says "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year." So, we brainstormed together and came up with some great ideas.

1 Stop is a family-owned business that has been operating in the Springfield area for over 20 years. They have experienced tremendous success and now with five locations, people often assume the business is a major chain corporation. I think the success is due to their perfectionist attitude and attention to detail. Friends and family have said that the customer service at 1 Stop is hard to beat.

I'm looking forward to the project and already have a few ideas for the site. You can view their current website here: www.1stopautoshopinc.com

Portfolio Addition: Sprinklawn Irrigation

2008-02-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

Their site is finished! The Walker family is thrilled with their new site and can’t want to start advertising. Their online presence features a showcase of their products and irrigation services, offers a helpful answers to frequently asked questions. Potential clients who have questions or need an estimate can send their information through the contact form. They are proud to be the first irrigation company in the area with a website.

Portfolio: http://www.designsonfire.com/folio/web/
Their new website: http://www.sprinklawnirrigation.com/

Portfolio Addition: Delta Church

2008-02-23T18:13:00.000-08:00

Delta Church is a brand new church plant in Springfield, Illinois and over the past year, their church has been growing by leaps and bounds. The pastor at Delta, Ryan Mobley contacted us for a redesign of their old site. The previous website was functional but needed a serious face-lift and technical updates. This new website is a major improvement and literally a work of art, Ryan is very enthusiastic about having a website he can be proud of and absolutely loves the new beautiful design!

Their website is packed with features and includes 21 pages of information, an events calendar, fading photo slideshow, scrolling news and announcements, sermons available for download, links to study guides and articles, a church family bulletin board, contact form, interactive map, and more! As you may imagine, this website was quite an extensive project and the development time took about 45 days, but it was worth every minute.

Portfolio: http://www.designsonfire.com/folio/web
Delta Church: http://www.deltachurch.net/

New Client: Sprinklawn Irrigation

2008-02-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

This week I had a design consultation with Lori and Brandon Walker of Sprinklawn Irrigation. This family company has been operating in the Springfield area for over 30 years with three generations of the Walker family actively participating in the business. They are very excited about being the first of the irrigation companies in town with an online presence.

Our first meeting was a lot of fun, I enjoyed the opportunity to just talk and hang out with the Walker’s. They are very friendly, I don’t know how it keeps happening but my clients are ALL such wonderfully nice people! It’s been a pleasure working with them so far.
I just started on the site this week and I can already tell that I have a lot to learn about irrigation. I really don’t have the slightest clue when it comes to sprinkler systems or turf aeration. I don’t even know what “silt” means, so this will definitely be a learning process for me. The release date is March 1, so hold onto your seats because this will be one short, but fast ride. I’m designing the site here on my server while the domain and hosting are being setup.

You can view the progress here: http://www.designsonfire.com/sites/sprinklawnirrigation.com

Inspiration: List-a-matic

2007-12-20T18:21:00.000-08:00

I ran across this clever website today: http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/

An Australian web design company, Max Design is using CSS to show how many different ways you can style the same list. It’s similar to the idea behind CSS Zen Garden but simplified to illustrate menu navigation. Some of the designs are very basic while others are very creative. Whoever has spent the time to create these examples has mastered the art of using CSS as their paintbrush for the web. Further down the page, there are links to external sites with more information and auto-generators. One of those links gives an extension for Dreamweaver that has a “wizard” you can use to create some of the CSS menu designs used here. I believe it’s the last link on the page. Anyway, I downloaded and tested this extension. It makes using CSS a click of a button, which is a perfect solution for people who are uninterested in learning the programming language and even better for those people who are teaching themselves. CSS is very straightforward and therefore simple to manipulate once you learn the basics. The difficult part is learning the hacks to make your design compatible with all browsers.

List-a-matic has given me lots of ideas and even provides the barebones CSS code that can be further molded and finessed into a design that matches a project I’m working on. Good job guys, I love finding other web designers that share a passion for upgrading web aesthetics using the latest technology and web standards compliant programming.

Portfolio Addition: Dick Van Dyke Appliance World

2007-12-19T18:18:00.000-08:00

I just finished working on the site for Dick Van Dyke Appliance World. It’s been a challenging and fun project for the last few weeks. I don’t know how it keeps happening but some of the friendliest and most courteous people end up contacting us for design work. I’m convinced that my clients are the best.

Their site was a redesign, the old site can be viewed here: http://www.appliance-world.com/old
The new site features a video commercial (as seen on Channel 20), quite a few fading photo slideshows, an interactive contact form, and obviously some beautiful custom graphic design. Dennis, Paul and the guys down at Dick Van Dyke in Springfield really love the new site. They are excited about the new design and can’t wait to advertise it and show off. I can’t blame them, it’s a nice website. I’m happy when my clients are happy!!!

http://www.appliance-world.com/

Check out latest addition to the Designs On Fire portfolio: http://www.designsonfire.com/folio/web

New Client: Dick Van Dyke Appliance World

2007-12-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

I’m currently working on the site for Dick Van Dyke Appliance World. They are the largest independent appliance dealer in Central Illinois, with three locations and servicing four major metropolitan areas. Their current site is a bit outdated and they’ve asked for a complete redesign. View the old site here: http://www.appliance-world.com/old

This is a large project, should be 16+ pages upon completion. Luckily the major appliance brands have allowed me to use their supplied stock photography. That’s been a major relief, I was having a hard time finding quality room scenes. I’ve incorporated lots of JavasScript to make the site flashy, with photo slideshows and a drop-down menu. CSS rollovers on buttons and logos throughout add to the special effects. Overall, I think it’s coming along nicely. Since my discovery that CSS-based designs work best in search engines, it’s been my goal to eliminate HTML tables from all my web design work. I’ve had great success in Google and Yahoo with my own site since the CSS overhaul and I expect the same for Appliance World. Their meta tags are all up to date and relevant to the content on their pages, which is a major improvement from the current site. Paul, the sales manager has been my main contact and he keeps saying the site and design work is exceeding their expectations. I’m happy when my clients are happy! Enough bragging, see for yourself: http://www.appliance-world.com/

The release date is December 21, but could be even sooner since I’m making such fast progress.

Inspiration: Joomla! CMS

2007-12-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

Wow. I am so excited about this… I just stumbled upon something revolutionary: a graphics -friendly content management system! It's called Joomla! and it's an open-source (FREE) content management system. Well, you may know that content management programs are NOT a new idea but often times they are cumbersome, slow and worst of all... ugly.

The good news is, Joomla! seems to be different. I've been waiting for a CMS to come along with some brilliant programming and setup so that graphics and templates are easily manipulated. So, basically I need to teach myself how it works so *maybe* I can start offering this to my clients as an easy way for them to update their own websites. To do this, I’ve installed the latest version on my testing server at http://joomla.kaitimae.com/ We’ll see how it goes!

“Joomla! is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS) that will help you
build websites and other powerful online applications. Best of all, Joomla! is
an open source solution that is freely available to everybody. The basic Joomla! package is designed to be easy to install, even for non-programmers.
Most people have no trouble getting our software up and running, and there is
plenty of support available for newbies. We have a growing, active community of
more than 40,000 friendly users and developers on our forums eager to
help.
Once Joomla! is installed and running, it is simple for even non-technical users to add or edit content, update images, and to manage the critical data that makes your company or organization go. Anybody with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage a Joomla! site. Via a simple, browser-based interface you will be able to easily add new press releases or news items, manage staff pages, job listings, product images, and create an unlimited amount of sections or content pages on your site. You can try our simple demo to get quick taste of what Joomla! is all about.”

I need more hours in a day … there’s just too much to learn sometimes.

Portfolio Update: Business Cards + New Sites

2007-11-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

I finally had a few minutes to update the ol’ folio with some new projects I’ve been working on. There are new examples of business cards and web sites. Over the past couple of months I’ve discovered that freelance design work is such a great way to meet people. I am so lucky, all of my clients are fun to work with.

Complete Redesign

2007-11-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

Designs On Fire has been redesigned, released to the public on November 6, 2007. Hope you like the new look. I chose a fixed-width layout so the site will now display correctly in the new version of Internet Explorer. It was developed for my favorite browser, Mozilla Firefox and a screen resolution of 1152×864. I had to make a few tweaks and tough sacrifices but the site design is now consistent for screen resolutions from 800×600 through 1280×1024. As I was viewing the site at the highest resolution, it makes me wonder how people can stand to squint at the tiny text. That would drive me crazy.

New additions include this news blog, which I plan to use as a design journal. I’ll update it with new clients, sites and projects that I’m working on. You’ll notice the resources section is new also, which includes many helpful articles for those interested in learning more about their design project.