Screen Recording 4.mov (7078 KB)

This past summer I interned with rockbeatspaper (RBP), a web design agency in High Point, NC. They were a lot of fun to work with, but it was also a lot of work! I learned new techniques and strategies to implement in my everyday design.

During my internship RBP assigned me to design website templates for Churches. They are broadening their target market from new and existing organizations to churches in need of website design. In order to accomplish this, they put together packages that churches can choose from to best fit the churches needs. 

This was the first template I designed. I started with some rough sketches of what I was wanting. Then I moved into Photoshop, using the 960 grid system to design my layout. The 960 GS is basically a column grid system using 12-16 columns to organize and layout the design. This makes the development process much easier. After designing the homepage layout, I designed the sub-page layout, the template for all the other pages. All the pages in the website will follow these two templates.

After I designed both templates, home and sub-page, I made two alternative color schemes that can be chosen from. This brings more variety to the table, and offers more custimization. 

Overall, I enjoyed this project a lot. I learned how to use the 960 GS, and why using a grid is important. I still use the same exact grid and system for all of my designs. Later, I will post another template I created this summer.

Awesomeness. Blowing your mind, awesomeness. 

Watch out MTV, the music video has just got a new gold standard. Indie band Arcade Fire has released a vid for the song “We Used to Wait” off of their new album, The Suburbs, and it’s basically one big ball of HTML5/Google Maps/musical goodness.

The video was announced today on the Official Google Blog, which details exactly what elements went into its creation. Dubbed “The Wilderness Downtown” (an undertaking created by writer/director Chris Milk) the video is a new kind of musical experience, reminiscent of — but much more advanced than — hypertext storytelling of old.

Basically, you surf over to “The Wilderness Downtown” page using Google Chrome (don’t use Safari, the program will murder your browser), and type in the address of your childhood home when prompted. If Google Maps has enough footage of home sweet home, you’ll be pulled into a multi-browser movie of your own making.

The experience of watching this highly personalized video is not easily described, but basically the story of childhood ending as time rapidly slips away becomes your own as trees shoot up out of nowhere on your old street, culminating in an opportunity to write a letter to a younger you. Check it out when you have a moment to really watch the whole thing, sans any other browsers.