We were approached by Kevin who was in the process of creating a new laser tagging arena in Newark, CA. Kevin wanted an innovative and modern website for his new laser tagging business. We focused on providing just that but with a professional look to it.

We were approached to do a clean website for a documentary called New Moa Bite. The documentary is still in the works, but the request was for a website that would really feature the content while giving it a modern and minimalistic feel. We did just that with a focus on large typography, as well as putting the main focus on video blocks.

In the summer of 2011 Eric from All High Sports approached our team to give his website a fresh face. All High Sports is a business that focuses on connecting aspiring high school athletes with college athletic coaches. Since one of our team members had created the entire custom backend for the search system and user system, we already had some vested interest with Eric–and we also really liked what he was doing with the business.

The approach on the site was to make sure that the end-user would have at first-glance a strong grasp of what All High Sports was and how it could help them. We focused on providing a large typography-focused headline and a video clip intended on showcasing how the system worked. The second thing we wanted the end-user to see was the quick search feature that allowed them to quickly put their feet in the waters of the custom search engine for the website.

We are happy to say that we released the front page for the website.

In early 2011, we were commissioned to build a website for one of the larger printing firms in the San Francisco bay area, Build Your Own Garment (BYOG). In the end, due to communication issues on our team’s side, the project needed to be cancelled. Regretfully, this was our fault and we were sad to see this project go. That being said, this design is still being posted as it reflects the result of one of our favorite stream of mockups. This ended up being the sixth mockup and the one we were going to code and bring to life.

The design itself focuses on providing the end-user, in this case their client or prospective client, with a one-glance shot of a highlighted client and with quick link options to the most relevant parts of the website that most of their audience members would want. It also features a custom tee shirt builder script built by our in-house staff. The script is a combination of handy dandy css3, html5, javascript, and ajax work–no Flash at all! (You know, to make it compatible for the small percentage of the world that supposedly doesn’t have flash.)

We are a little bummed this mockup was never fully released, but it was such a great experience that we thought it to be post worthy.

Campus Rotaract Club of Davis (crcdavis.org)

With their old system falling apart and being abused by spambots, the Rotaract club in Davis was in desperate need of a redesign and a new system. We were happy to be able to revitalize their website with a completely new WordPress backend.

User-friendly & straight to the point

One of the tenants that we preach when we design a site is to be straight to the point. Eye-candy is great, but when it comes down to it every website has a particular audience-base that visits the website for specific reasons. As a designer, it is important to be able to foresee those reasons and cater to providing these guests–the clients of our clients–with a clear view of the information they want. The new design for crcdavis.org focuses on this tenant by cutting down on the clutter with a homepage that focuses on providing guests with a visual demonstration of the club’s activities through a jquery slideshow. Links are also very prominent and clear due to the clean nature of the design.

Powerfully built with the right tools

The WordPress backend is configured with ease of mind, as posts and pages can be created and updated on the fly with little training. What makes the setup unique is the custom configured features that we put together in the backend. Just two of those features include hardened security to help the website block and fight spam, and an online event tracking system. Tracking and signing up for events are now easier than ever as club officers can access printable tables of participants, as well as receive emails whenever someone signs up for an event. There are over a dozen other custom features that we have added to the configuration just to start off. As per our long-term relationship policy, we will continue to administer and provide updates to their system.

The UC Davis Quarter Abroad staff asked us to give their website a facelift. Even though their last redesign was only two years ago by on-campus staff, they were looking for something much cleaner. They wanted the clutter reduced so that students interested in studying abroad with one of their programs could easily navigate their site and get to where they wanted to go.

Out with the old

When we first visited the Quarter Abroad website, their pages were straight-forward, although a little cluttered. It looked as if they started throwing too much content into their design. Here are some of the pages of the old design:

And in with the new

This is the new design we came up with:

Sometimes “clean” is just all you need

The new design that we provided for Quarter Abroad focuses on a providing a clean and clear user experience. This way, students interested in studying abroad can easily navigate the website and find the information they are looking for. We were also able to deliver this project quickly since we were able to simply pull the content from the previous version of their website.

The first in the series is a tribute to the beauty of clean typography. Allow me to introduce to you what happens when you infuse a little Taio Cruz with Myriad Pro (that’s a font, mind you).

GOOD TYPOGRAPHY

As designers, typography is a staple in almost all of our works. While typography itself doesn’t inherently have a bad or good nature, it is absolutely critical to know when to use the right fonts. The Dynamite inspired graphic was created using only Myriad Pro as the typeface. Myriad Pro happens to be one of our favorite fonts here at the studio. More importantly, Myriad Pro is a modern typeface which by itself provides a clean-cut look, which can be bent for your own purposes.

THE MESSAGE YOU WANT TO CONVEY

When you are choosing your fonts, you want to consider what kind of impression you want to convey. Is your task to create a graphic for a dance poster? Or is it to create a poster for a Shakespearean play? Or is it to create a poster for a regional business conference? Handwritten fonts such as James Fajardo might look great if you need a little style or a classier look, but it’s probably not something you want to put on a health care conference poster. (Or maybe it is, depending on if there is a theme.) The bottom line is to make sure you are consciously aware of the fonts you choose for your works. Make the most out of them, and don’t be afraid to go out searching for more fonts.

Dafont.com is a great resource for free fonts. If you have some spending money to shell out, then we recommend you check out Veer.com. They have an amazing library of exclusive and premium fonts that will make any designer drool. But we are going to warn you right now: they’re a top-notch typography firm (in other words, don’t plan on doing much more than window shopping if you don’t have money).

KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE

Knowing who your graphic’s audience will be is a critical step to picking your typeface. Our Dynamite poster graphic was designed assuming our audience would be the younger generation of 16 to 28. The poster content focuses on lyrics from a (relatively) new hit by Taio Cruz called Dynamite (which is why we keep referring to it as the Dynamite poster). While Myriad Pro can be an age-neutral typeface, the colors we chose were intentionally used to simulate the positive colors that would encourage someone to dance. (We are told by researchers that particular shades of red and yellow have a tendency of causing stronger reactions to take action–wow that should be quote.) When in doubt, play around with the typeface and the colors, and then create multiple versions of your graphic. Then send those versions to some test subjects (we like calling them “interns”), and see how they react.

ALWAYS ASK YOUR CLIENT

Lastly, always ask your client what they think about certain typefaces. While it is true that the average layperson have trouble distinguishing fonts or knowing the difference between sans-serif and serif, most people can tell you which font they like better if you put them next to each other for comparison.

1. featured_slide_img

The “featured_slide_img” custom field will allow you to enter a URL to the image of your choosing. Just upload it from the “Add Media” button above this text-editor and grab the File URL from the image. Remember it needs to be 940 x 284 px to fit into the slider.

Some optional things you can add:

2. featured_slide_caption – Quite simply, this field will add a basic text caption to the bottom of your image. No HTML, sorry! This version of the Nivo Slider doesn’t support that yet.

3. featured_slide_destination – Want this slide to link to somewhere? Add your destination URL here.

4. launch_this_in_a_lightbox – Want to launch a lightbox from the slide? Use this one instead of the “featured_slide_destination” and whatever link you put in there will load into a lightbox. Keep in mind there are limitations to this – it’s probably best to just link to images unless you are pretty comfortable with the prettyPhoto slider settings.

1. featured_slide_img

The “featured_slide_img” custom field will allow you to enter a URL to the image of your choosing. Just upload it from the “Add Media” button above this text-editor and grab the File URL from the image. Remember it needs to be 940 x 284 px to fit into the slider.

Some optional things you can add:

2. featured_slide_caption – Quite simply, this field will add a basic text caption to the bottom of your image. No HTML, sorry! This version of the Nivo Slider doesn’t support that yet.

3. featured_slide_destination – Want this slide to link to somewhere? Add your destination URL here.

4. launch_this_in_a_lightbox – Want to launch a lightbox from the slide? Use this one instead of the “featured_slide_destination” and whatever link you put in there will load into a lightbox. Keep in mind there are limitations to this – it’s probably best to just link to images unless you are pretty comfortable with the prettyPhoto slider settings.

But once in a while, Overnight Prints releases some irresistible deals. Here are a couple that caught our eye:

• 500 free single-sided business cards. Promo code: 9WANR6FL (expires 2/28/11)
• $15 discount on ANY order. Promo code: 15ALLWEEKEND (expires 7/18/2010)
• 50% off postcards. Promo code: SALEPC (they didn’t tell us the expiration. it could be tomorrow!)

This is a perfect chance for you to get those business cards that you’ve always been dreaming of. Heck, you could get three 11’x17’ posters of yourself (or your favorite idol, model, etc.) for free with the $15 discount (oh, that one expires at the end of this weekend!).

Enjoy, because we definitely are going to.

* When pitting a business card from overnightprints versus a business card from vistaprint in a one-on-one duel, the card from VP only lasted 10 seconds before being torn beyond recognition. The ONP card was scarred but still retained its shape as a business card.