Now what?

Time to double check everything. Also to figure out this weblog thing that's also due....

404 Page!!

Check out our 404 page. It's not exactly how I imagined but pretty damn close. And still pretty awesome.

http://cdleyva.myweb.usf.edu/pages/404.html

99% Done

So basically everything is done and finessed.
To accommodate for smaller monitors/resolutions we pulled the content up and added top navigation.

We just need to do little things like adding in the biography that he is writing for himself. Favicon icon. Meta tags for google. That's about it as far as I recall.

>>> CHECK IT OUT <<<

We're Online! (but not done)

So basically we are very close to completing the site. Most of the hard stuff is out of the way. Currently we are stuck on our About slider gallery. We found a cool one... it doesn't want to work. You know how it goes. For now you can see the home page and more importantly how the Fine Art gallery looks. Basically the Tattoo gallery will look exactly the same but with tattoos! Slider gallery of the shop on the About page and contact info and a map on the Contact page. Use your imagination!

Other Pages

Here is what we are thinking the other pages will look like. Simple. Clean. All about the gallery and it's images. The first is an example of how the Fine Art and Tattoo gallery will look - lightbox. The second is an example of how the About page will look. Since the About page isn't necessarily about the images we are using a more fancy slider gallery.

Almost Final Mock Up

So here are 2 mock ups of the home page that (unlike the proposal which were ideas) is very close to being ready to be done and ready for splicing and coding etc.
TO BE CLEAR: the lit sign, "tattoos," is not going to be lit - they will all be mouseover sprites and stay lit when on the page. The sign at the top leads back to the home page. I just have the one sign lit up so you can see what the navigation hover / active state is. Nothing on the homepage will be lit up initially unless moused over or clicked   :)

I would like some critique. Specifically on the treatment of "not so evil" and "tattoos"... I think we will have Don custom write out tattoos for us instead of using a font offline.... not sure...

Photoshoot

For the about [the shop] page and fine art gallery page of the site we took photos of the shop and his artwork hanging in it. Since photos of his shop, tattoos, and his paintings are important we wanted to make sure we got good pictures. Here is a nice picture of the shop and his work hanging up. Notice the neon sign he has just like his business card and similar to what we are doing on his shop just REAL.

Evil Don Site Composition

Right now we, me as Information Architect with the help of my colleagues, are putting together mock ups of the website. He has a very cool logo (as seen in Jen's posting) that we are trying to utilize. The logo is reminicant of a 50's sign. So we are thinking of extending the sign on the left side and adding extra signs to the poles to create navigation. We don't have anything worth showing yet besides sketches and crappy mock ups but you can get the idea of what we are trying to do from this website full of some neon signs:

http://myneonlights.blogspot.com/2009/04/animated-neon-signs.html

Evil Don Tattoos (because Dawn is a bitch)

So apparently we talked to the owner of Lou's Tattoos (which is Dawn and not Lou) and she was a completely rude cunt rag bitch face dyke whore devil woman. Apparently she was completely offended we wanted to redo her website and that it was updated constantly although it SUCKS ASS! Need I remind you of their papyrus logo and that the site says it was last updated in 2002.....

</rant>

So now we are doing (for sure) Evil Don tattoos on central. Very nice guy. Understood that free work is exciting. Also he has less artists so it will actually be easier. He doesn't have a website yet so he is happy to be put on the web for free.

Lou's Tattoos

So we decided on what we are doing:   Lou's Tattoos!!
No offense but it's SO BAD.. they use papyrus!!!!


We did decide on a tattoo shop and it would be similar to our portfolio websites because essentially we would be highlighting the artists work. We have a creative brief started as well as a site map (seen below). We think this site will not give us too much of a headache as well as being super fun to do. Essentially we will be working with other artists so it should be interesting. We shall see!

Final Assignment - The Beginnings

I was thinking along the lines of redesigning my friends dads website. It's a banner website so it would really be a design from scratch. Here is the site: Pinellas Marine Construction


Jen and Chelsea were thinking more along the lines of doing a local tattoo shop. That might be more fun.

Home Page. Done.

new logo!

CRAZEH BACKGROUNDS!!!

So the tiny squiggles you have seen are the calmest and therefore will be the on the portfolio page. The first is the home page, the second 'about me,' and third is contact. I did redesign the logo a bit to compensate for readability and that will be posted soon.

Sprite Power

The buttons are now all fancy sprites that look more childish / 90s-ish / awesome.

myweb.usf.edu

I figured out how to  upload to the USF website via your personal NetID crap. I would just do it for Jen if she wishes seeing as how I have my own webspace although I did add something to mine as a.... "test"


Check it out:
http://cdleyva.myweb.usf.edu/

Redesign

So basically I just redesigned the home page. It's like old paper (or I was told it looks like a big sticky note). I was going for a more suitable look. The hand drawn feel works better than it was before.

web design is like a guessing game.

It's hard to figure out and one can basically only guess until they figure it out.. Like doing something as simple as centering a website can be challenging. I'm almost there...

I added tabs!

Here is what I have thus far. The website is sliced and workable. Just needs some cleaning up. I believe the tabs are fitting. Now just to finish some of the crazy background and of course at the content.

The Beginning

So I'm working on my client (Jen's) website. I'm experimenting with splicing in Photoshop. It generates the code and image folder for you! Sort of. It's not as easy as it sounds. Also the code has to be cleaned up a little to optimize it. Very confusing. Although having a basic spine where the images are placed and cropped is very nice. I just need to finish up a couple background designs and add some side navigation buttons.

My Weekend

My weekend consisted of school work. Posting this blog being part of the schoolwork I had to do. Although besides this I worked on my After Effects movie and it's completely ridiculous. Ridiculously hilarious!! I have to thank Jimmy for letting me use his apartment and being my actor and also Josh for being my victim. It turned out great. You can check it out here if you want.


This video and homework in general consumed my weekend but luckily what little free time I had was spent playing the best game ever: Halo Reach. Virtually stabbing people in the face then tea bagging their dead bodies is a great way to unwind.


Lastly, my uncle has a new job for me redesigning this awesome german ladies website. I don't know what there is to fix - it's perfect... Check this out too.