The following is a time line of my development as a web designer. To this day, I continue to train myself on web standards, e-commerce an online marketing. To get an understanding of where I come from and where I am going, please continue to read. If you just want a quick glance of some of my web layouts, please click here for a list of my web designs.
Humble beginnings…
I was trained as an illustrator and graphic artist at a time when those industries were making the transition from analogue to digital. Students were taught traditional methods of design while being introduced to the emerging technologies of desktop publishing. The internet just started becoming public during my last year at East Carolina University.
While I readily adopted the techniques of designing with computers, I didn’t embrace the internet until the mid to late 90′s. When I finally started using the internet, I only used it for casual browsing.
I knew that I needed to learn more about designing web sites. An online presence was mandatory to to stay competitive and promote myself as a graphic artist.. When I decided to start studying web design, I found that dynamic sites were the way to go. But, after finding a 3 inch thick book on PHP at the library, I decided to sharpen my illustrations and design skills instead.
I still needed a web site, so I improvised with what I knew…
Ollice Design Part I
Above is my first true web site. It outlined all the services that I could provide and served as portfolio to show prospective clients my work. I included a blog section to take care of my SEO needs and bring viewers over to my main site. I’m glad I included that blog. It is the basis of this current web site.
I decided to use a dark color scheme to to emphasize the bright colors in my designs. The thumbnails would show in full color when rolled over with the mouse. My logo would also slowly pulse like a Mac computer’s power button when asleep.
The layout and visual style were created in PhotoShop. I added rollovers in ImageReady and output the HTML code. The individual pages were stitched together with Dreamweaver to bring the site together. Admittedly, I would not create a website like this the same way today. It uses tables for layout and inline styling, which is a very old fashioned way to create websites. This method also hurts the SEO of the site and severely restricts accessibility for screen readers.
My career into web design started when a fellow artist hired me to create his site…
The A. Guy Studio Website
Allan Guy is an independent graphic artist, based in Manassas, Virginia. Allan’s bread and butter is the wine and spirits label market. Chances are, you’ve seen his work before. Before creating this site for him, I had no idea he had worked with so many great clients! Now I know, and so does the rest of the world.
Allan wanted an understated vehicle to showcase his designs. We researched the industry leaders in his field and came up with a strategy. Allan’s potential clients created wines and spirits for a distinguished and mature market. I chose muted yet elegant color combinations with just a hint of texture to offset the designs. I still used the same methods as my first website.
Allan was so pleased with his site, he recommended my skills to one of his clients…
The Vino Curioso Website
Michael Matthews needed a site to promote his growing Virginia winery. The wine was starting to get some rave reviews and customers at festivals and tastings were asking if they could buy his wines online. Vino Curioso was my first e-commerce site. I used the same technique as my sites before, but this one integrated the PayPal shopping cart feature. The highlight of this site was the interactive wineglass that switched between a red or white wine when the user rolled over the wine name. The sunset and wine glasses were photographed on Cayuga Lake in the beautiful wine region of the Finger Lakes.
After the success of his first site, Allan Guy contacted me again…
The A. Guy Fine Art Studio Website
Allan Guy wanted a separate site to show his painting skills.The site is filled with his oil paintings of landscapes and portraits.
I combined muted colors in the textured backgrounds to push Allan’s art to the foreground. The combination of the bold colors in the paintings and the subtle grays of the background really pulled this site together.
Allan’s site really raised the bar and made my site look dull…
Ollice Design Part II
After being told that my logo resembled a logo designed by Stefan Sagmeister, I decided to design a new logo for myself. I’ve done a lot of work for Tommy Bahama and had immersed myself in the research of that style of culture. So, I wanted to emulate a cigar box from the turn of the century. This version of my website was just one page that only highlighted my illustration work. It was very narrow in scope. It only featured the my best illustrations that somewhat reflected this retro style.
Originally, the code for this site was generated with Photoshop and ImageReady, using tables and inline styling. But, I had started studying web standards, and decided to hand code the HTML and CSS. A co-worker at the time, Mike Rundle, coded the jQuery for me. That guy is so good at coding, he was typing the code with his head turned while we were having a conversation!
Studying web technologies and techniques eventually lead me down the road towards WordPress. My static sites just weren’t standing the test of time. If I wanted to make a change or an update, I had to completely redo entire sections. WordPress is an open source, ready to go, living, breathing solution!
That realization brought me to where I am now…
Ollice Design Part III
The latest version of the Ollice Design website is now running on WordPress! It only took me a little over a year and 5 or 6 iterations. The problem was wrapping my head around what features I wanted or needed. I tested a huge amount of different themes with the thought of customizing them. After attending my local WordPress Meetup, I found out the hosts were the development team at StudioPress. Not only do those guys host Meetups, but they hosted the first Raleigh WordCamp, which really opened my eyes about the WordPress community.
This site is a customized Metric child theme of the Genesis framework. That means that the guys at StudioPress can update the framework with new features without breaking my custom child theme. I’m using about a dozen plugins and I’ve just started experimenting. I’m sure I will be making more changes going forward.
That’s the end of my web design time line. Any new sites will be made with WordPress and listed here, in the “web design” category of my blog.
