Jul 26
Blowing My Own Horn
in Web Design
 

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… no… not that.

You’re Dirrrrrrrty!

No, I’m talking about the two projects that I have been working on for quite some time. It just so happens that they got released at the same time. (Note to self: In the future, don’t try to release multiple sites at the same time.)

First, I’d like to point everyone over to Killer and Liz’s new website. Killer approached me several months ago about designing a new home for all their beer, gaseous emissions, ball sweat, and throw pillows. I agreed, and got him set up on my server, reserved his domain name, and waited for the banner artwork to come from his friend Clib.

Killer and Liz decided they wanted a space where they could have separate blogrolls, separate reading and music lists, and some way to differentiate between the posts based on author. That sort of made my original plan to develop the site in Wordpress problematic. Wordpress is a fantastic program for publishing a typical blog, but it’s not designed to be truly used as a content management system.

I turned to my talented (and patient) friend Dan for suggestions. We considered Drupal and Mambo and finally settled on Expression Engine, which he painstakingly helped me code (who am I kidding… he did 98% of the programming, I wrote all the html and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)).

I then proceeded to redesign the look of the site no less than four times. You know how you can put away something you’ve been writing or working on, come back to it the next day and think, “WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?” Yeah. I did a bunch of that.

I finally settled on a plan that would allow Killer and Liz to have their own sections on the website, plus a combined blog that pulled everything together. I managed to work in the Blue and Pink color scheme that was requested (despite a brown, red, and orange banner). Yay me.

Anyway, I hope you’ll take a moment to go kick the tires on their new trailer and have a look around.

And while you’re in an exploration mood, head over to the other site that Dan and I have poured an unbelievable amount of time into, you know, San Francisco’s Premiere 70’s and 80’s Rock/Pop Party Band, Total Eclipse Band! If you saw the old site, you’ll know it’s a huge change.

Don’t miss all the new demo songs on the Jukebox. Sign up for our newsletter, or check out the articles for clients or bands. There are a few more minor changes that need to be made. That, and I need to write more articles, but that’s typical.

Now, I’m going to go have myself a celebratory glass of wine, though I shouldn’t mix it with the medicine I’m on to try and kick this bronchitis stuff I’ve had for a couple of weeks.

And yeah, if you know anyone who needs a website designed, we’ve got room on my calendar. (If Dan is still willing to work with me.:D )

27 Responses to “Blowing My Own Horn”
 

Oh come on it was all fun. Yeah I know you wanted to choke me this last week. Next project we do, lets not write a page four times. Lets try to get it right no later than the third.

Daniel wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 2:00 am

 
 

Now there’s an idea. Instead of giving my myspace a new look, Jester and Dan could do it. You two are genius! Can I pay in pictures? I promise I won’t complain no matter how many times it’s rewritten. Scouts honor!

Toby wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 2:51 am

 
 

Daniel - You just have to take the fun out of everything. I think completely rewriting Killer’s site three days before it went live was exciting!

Toby - Pay in pictures you say….? The sounds you hear are my eyebrows raising and my interest being piqued… What sort of pictures did you say?

jester wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 3:23 am

 
 

I love that header - very cool. The design idea on the main page is nice, although I wonder if it will be viewable by those retards who keep their resolution too low.

Avitable wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 5:44 am

 
 

Avitable: That is always a hard decision in web design. Take the new features and make something pretty or cater to people who won’t upgrade. The page size debate got settled last year when Yahoo switched it page size on its home page to 1024×768

Daniel wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 6:59 am

 
 

Yeah, that’s true. As someone who has 1600X1200, I do get annoyed with small sites, but for my corporate site, I try to accommodate anything 800X600 and larger.

Avitable wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 7:02 am

 
 

Jester,

KillerRants looks fantastic! It’s fucking awesome. Great job!

-Mel

Mel-O-Drama wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 7:05 am

 
 

Hello, Jester,
I found my way here from Paula’s and… I wanna be your apprentice! Dude, I love this blog design! I am a web designer wannabe, but my day job and working on my education has me continually putting it on the backburner. I have dabbled, as you can tell if you check out my main website, but I haven’t had time to work on my blog. I used to have a design I liked, but it no longer fit my psyche, so now I have nothing but purple until I figure out what I want my new identity to be. I use Wordpress, too. Did you start from scratch with your design, or did you build on top of another one? I’m thinking you must have started from scratch. It’s awesome.

Anyway, I learned a lot in your recent debate, and will probably drop by now and again. It’s nice to “meet” you.

Arleen wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 7:09 am

 
 

Avitable - Yeah, I have debated this subject several times, but like Daniel said, now that Yahoo has upgraded it’s time for everyone else to follow suit. The last statistics that I saw show that less than 10% of the net population is still using an 800X600 resolution. I’m tired of having to cater to the lowest common denominator.

Now if we can just get everyone to upgrade to the latest IE I’d be a happier man.

Mel - Thank you, thank you!

Arleen - Welcome! For my site (jestertunes) I did indeed start from scratch with a blank page. Same with Killerrants and TotalEclipseband. The best way for you to figure all this stuff out is to start manipulating the themes you can download from all over the place. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking a layout that has already been coded and adding your own graphics and touches to it. Once you figure out what all the pieces do and how the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) works, you can write them yourself. Hope to see you around again soon!

jester wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 1:52 pm

 
 

i’ve never met a web content management system that i like. i’ve worked with them on/off for 8 years now, and we’re still in the dark ages.

minijonb wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 3:36 pm

 
 

minijonb - I agree there is a real need for a USER FRIENDLY but still POWERFUL cms. Wordpress is pretty close, but it’s definitely limited by the default structure and leads to a lot of sites looking exactly the same. By using Expression Engine, we probably caught a mouse with a shrimp net, but we were able to do exactly what we wanted. The drawback is that the learning curve on EE is huge and it’s really clunky. And Killer and Liz will never really need to know or use 80% of the things that EE can do.

jester wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

 
 

you guys did a seriously bang up job with liz and killer’s site. ~way~cool. i think my favorite feature is that i can now separate liz’s stuff from killer’s stuff.

cause you know, some days you feel like a nut, some days you don’t. ;-)

awesome job guys. i love it. :-)

heather wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 6:29 pm

 
 

I love that design! Excellent work, you guys.

I tried EE once and just didn’t have the patience for it. Of course, that was when I just starting on WP and was trying to figure that out. Now I’m just lazy. I have been playing with Drupal lately, though, and I have to say it’s very fun learning it.:) But, yeah, you guys are rockin’! I’m so very jealous.

Jennyjinx wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 6:30 pm

 
 

You are so right about Expression Engines steep learning curve. I bought it back in 2004 and now am just starting to really use it.

Drupal is an interesting product. I have to admit I don’t like it. I really felt trapped when I used it. I would like to see some nice sites in Drupal that are done my normal humans that not feel all drupal like.

Daniel wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 6:53 pm

 
 

heather - Thanks so much. I can understand feeling like a nut some days and a martini on others.:)

Jennyjinx - I’m not such a big fan of drupal, but admittedly I didn’t spend that much time trying to learn it.

Daniel - We could always try drupal for the next one.:)

jester wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 8:22 pm

 
 

Yeah sure as long as it is not a website I have to manage everyday.

Daniel wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 8:56 pm

 
 

Daniel, there you go taking the fun out everything again!

jester wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 9:00 pm

 
 

Well we could always redo Jestertunes in Drupal if you like ;-)

Daniel wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 9:02 pm

 
 

What no comment… Who is no fun now.

Daniel wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 10:13 pm

 
 

Daniel - I think the internet monster ate my comment from earlier, which was, “I’m not in the habit of fixing things that aren’t broken. Don’t you have a couple of sites on our calendar?”

jester wrote on July 27th, 2007 at 10:26 pm

 
 

The new site is frigging awesome. You guys did a great job and now that it is all finally up, I just have to actually post something interesting enough to go along with it.

I recommend Jester and Dan for everyone’s design needs.
I should video tape a commercial for you.

Killer wrote on July 28th, 2007 at 6:01 am

 
 

Ok, so this time Panera didn’t block me? That must mean there is a shortage of full-frontals on your blog. Get with the program, man!

Hi Jester!!

Bianca wrote on July 28th, 2007 at 6:59 am

 
 

Killer - Yes you should do a commercial for us. It should mention balls. I love it when commercials mention balls. Ooo.. and it should have a monkey in it. That would be awesome. Just because I like monkeys.

Bianca - Uh, hi! welcome back! I don’t think I’ve EVER posted full frontal on my the homepage. Unless you count that caption me contest, but that one you had to click-through to see it! At any rate. I think you need internet again. You are never around for discussions. ;(

jester wrote on July 28th, 2007 at 9:52 am

 
 

Even though this post is all about your mad skills, it’s still an add for Killer Rants. What did Killer have to do to get the free publicity? (eye brow arched, lips pursed).

Why do I suddenly want to go brew some tea bags?

:)

As I’ve said, GREAT job. Still some problems, technically, so please let me know what I’m doing that has made my post drop down. I have an idea- maybe Killer made his post sticky and because I didn’t, it threw us off kilter?

I’m so out of my league with that guess.

Looks fantastic!! FANTASTIC. Thanks for caring enough to get it right!! Dan too.

Liz wrote on July 28th, 2007 at 10:10 am

 
 

Liz - I would tell you what Killer had to do for the free publicity, but I would hate for you to get jealous.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by your post has dropped down? Could you be more specific? Maybe a screen shot? Everything looks fine for me on Firefox.

jester wrote on July 28th, 2007 at 9:51 pm

 
 

Thanks to the article, well thought out. I searched for a while to find the right answer to my questions!

Ultrasound Equipment wrote on August 11th, 2008 at 10:38 am

 
 

Thanks to the article, it make the life of a seo/link building easier and make the commenter come back again and again. I searched for a while to find the right answer to my questions!

Acai Berry wrote on August 18th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

 

Say something already!



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