web work

It's been about six months since work was begun on this project, so it's a relief as well as an accomplishment (I believe) that the new UC Davis School of Law website was launched last week.





There's still a lot of tweaking that needs to be done before I'm prepared to call it complete (and it'd be nice if we had more than one listing in the events column, but what are you going to do?), but for the most part I'm excited to add it to my portfolio. I served as the sole designer, photographer, and art director overseeing the look of the site as it was being coded. Maybe it's just me, but comparing it to all the other UCD graduate school websites makes me even more proud of the way the site turned out. Management, Education, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine.

Without a doubt, the most challenging part was collecting photographs of students, faculty, and alumni for use on the homepage. I'm not terribly comfortable as a portrait photographer (I prefer to use a camera as if I'm and eyewitness documenting an event or emotion, and not to tell someone to look my way and smile. Cross your arms, put your left hand in your pocket. How about leaning against that rail. No, nevermind, that looks kind of awkward. Perfect. Oh wait, my flash wasn't turned on, do that again.) and I usually feel so nervous that I want to throw up fifteen minutes before a scheduled photoshoot.

And just for the hell of it, following are the multiple drafts I went through before coming to the final design.


Hey, given that this was my first draft, it looks shockingly similar to what is online. Here's what I think happened: I was told I needed to present multiple designs to a committee of staff, faculty, students, and administration who would help decide the final design. This draft is what came out after I'd been mentally stewing on my ideas, and I was quite happy with it. In order to appease everyone while at the same time move forward with the best (in my mind) design, the subsequent designs actually turned out quite horribly. Then in comparison, you'd have to be stupid not to choose this one. It's not that I'm not open to change and suggestions (the final design looks a whole hell of a lot better than this one thanks to helpful suggestions from others), it's just that I was confident with this general layout.


Okay, this one's not too terrible, but I still don't like it.


The colors are pretty hideous, and I don't think it's even possible to present a photo this large. The page would take fifteen seconds to load, and creating an image that stretches 100% vertically presents so many problems I don't event know where to start.


Again with the hideous colors.


Really, now, it looks as if I'm beginning to chop up design elements from previous layouts and pasting them together to create new ones.


They caught on to me and said I was chopping up design elements from previous layouts and pasting them together to create new ones. So this is what I created, and would be very upset if chosen.


Lastly, I was asked to expand on my third draft. Fortunately this design was not chosen because it would not work, period. Given web standards and standard browser size, we would've had to scrap all our work if this design were to have proceeded.

Oh, and I updated my portfolio as well, and will make more updates to it within the week.