not yet final
Sometimes an established design just works and has the underlying structure solidly in place. Then all that’s needed to launch a new venture is a quick theme to give you access to all Wordpress‘ features without making your user feel as though they’re jumping to a completely new system. The existing site’s use of Yahoo’s YUI CSS can make the transition of the HTML to a new system completely painless with minimal original CSS.
not yet final
Some designs look great in Photoshop, but when the entire site is just one big image, it isn’t the most efficient use of HTML, to say nothing of standards compliance. Little compromises and creative use of CSS must be employed so that the spirit of the design is intact. An elegant fade here and a font replacement there are touches that can make the site beautiful from the outside, right down to the code.
2010
A promo site for a contest needs to tie into the core product’s site design and brand, while standing out as a unique and exciting event. Sometimes a lead image can accomplish this by communicating the core concepts of the contest while not actually presenting the product or contest format.
Polite Javascript gives above the fold calls to action without breaking the site for users who have scripting turned off.
2009
The one page website always wants to grow beyond a single page. Location details, contact or signup forms, and other necessarily information can clutter the impact of a single, promotion focused page. Javascript can help hide a quick webform or other key information until the user is ready for it, while keeping the site crisp and refined.
2009
Your choice of content management system can often come down a decision between flexibility and ease of use. By limiting options, Wordpress brings content management right down to the level that anyone can do it; Drupal provides a more robust system with a much higher learning curve. But more and more Wordpress plugins are being developed to help bridge that gap, and among the best is Role Scoper.
Some custom theme work and Role Scoper helped divy up Bellini’s store pages between location employees and regional managers.
2009
Stock photos can be limiting and unnatural, but they can also liberate a site design from the confines of perfect gradients and the two dimensional layout required by most sites. An organic image of the actual client’s actual product is preferable, but on the other hand…who would’ve imagined there could be an attractive photo of a router?
2009
One huge advantage with using Drupal is the fluidness and flexibility of “blocks.” Blocks are sometime dynamic pieces of content outside of the primary information being displayed on a particular page. The ability to place this content in unique locations on specific pages is a valuable resource in skilled hands.
2009
Ad placement is proving to be more and more critical for content oriented sites. While we’d all love ads to be as unintrusive as possible, more and more users are comfortable looking past the flashing lights that surround their content. A more subtle, integrated approach is necessary to give users the information they’re looking for, and the site owner the revenue they need to keep going.
not yet final
The highlight of this chore assigning product site will be the Build-A-Board feature which allows users to customize and then order their very own Roll, Spin, or Color board. With the files for the board builder, video, and articles on the table, Drupal’s ability to support multiple content types made it the best content management system for the job.
The best CSS works great in every browser without any need for hacks. Unfortunately, not every job affords that kind of freedom and some are specifically looking for someone to make the site they’ve perfected in Firefox just work in IE.
While the introduction of IE8 takes us one step closer to being rid of IE6 and its sans-logic behavior, IE8 still contains the same idiosyncrasies when absolutely positioning content. Unfortunately, it no longer ignores CSS hacks such as html>body. Apparently we’ll still need to create additional stylesheets for years to come.
