DinoTri 2010

This project is similar to the Uintah Recreation District project.  I’m still not sure anyone connected with the DinoTri is aware that I spent time putting this together.  Regardless, I met an individual who told me that he was responsible for organizing the 2010 DinoTri, which is a triathlon in Eastern Utah.  It has been running for several years now, but this year it seemed like the whole thing was on shaky ground.  Fortunately, through hard work and dedication, DinoTri 2010 is slated to happen at the end of June.

I agreed to help build a website for DinoTri.  Nothing was set in stone during that conversation, but I thought I’d get started on the project right away.  I spent some time mocking up this design.  I never committed any of the design to code, and many things are still quite rough in the layout.  But I liked the direction the site was headed.  Ultimately, the event organizers decided to stick with the same website design they had used in previous years.  Maybe next year . . .

RefreshBasinFamilies.com - Pepsi Refresh

Our local community is relatively isolated from many services offered in larger, more urban areas.  In particular, the Uintah Basin needs additional programs geared toward assisting families (both parents and children) in overcoming common challenges.

I agreed to help a friend put together an informational webpage to supplement the material posted on Pepsi’s “Refresh Everything” website.  Pepsi is doing a really great thing, funding a monthly contest to help provide financial backing to worthy causes.  My job was to build a single page site that could communicate a little about the cause my friend is working toward.  I was more than happy to be involved.

I did not receive any guidance on what the site should look like, other than “make us look cooler than we are.”  That’s a tall order.  I tried to pick a color scheme that was fresh and inviting, without coming across as corporate or unfriendly to the ultimate clients of the program.  The copy used on the page was supplied by my friend.  The result is a fairly simple layout, but with a pleasing presentation.  Check out an archived version of the page: refreshbasinfamilies.com

BestEmergencySource.com

This is a sister project to Best72HourKit.com.  BestEmergencySource.com focuses on selling a broader range of products than did the earlier version.  For that reason, it became necessary to rework the design both on the front-end and the back-end.

THE FRONT-END

The first thing we did was create a new homepage which could accommodate an expanded product line.  The navigation needed to remain simple and unobtrusive, so we left it as fairly plain, unstyled text, with a category listing down the left-hand margin.  We also refined the experience of adding a product to the cart and checking out.

THE BACK-END

In the back-end, the shopping experience relies on ExpressionEngine, FoxyCart.com, and HCC Development’s FoxEE module, which is a fantastic module that integrates ExpressionEngine and FoxyCart.

Best72HourKit.com

This project was guided by one over-arching principle: KEEP IT SIMPLE.  This philosophy extended from the product line (only four product options) through the site design (including navigation, page structure, and imagery). 

We worked out a custom design that was at once informational and visibly clean.  We provided the client with custom images of each item contained within the various kit options.  This brought consistency and visual appeal to the kit item descriptions.

In addition to that, we needed to find a way to include a great deal of descriptive information in a tight area.  As a result, we enlisted the help of some jQuery scripts to create a tabbed page structure and an accordion-style item listing.

Uintah Recreation District

I was not hired to do a redesign of this site.  In fact, I’m still not sure anyone affiliated with the Uintah Recreation District even knows that I spent time mocking this up.  The Uintah Recreation District now has a new site, one that appears to have been purchased from a turn-key, cookie-cutter site builder.  Sad.

When I created my design, visiting the then-current site was truly a miserable experience.  This redesign felt like a vast improvement to me.  I rebuilt the logo from scratch, with a slightly brighter sunburst.  The navigation was inspired by the navigation designed and coded by Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain for his ExpressionEngine website redesign.  I was super-impressed at how nicely his design presented various sub-navigation items.  I borrowed heavily from his work and I think he should have credit, even though this design is not live on the web. 

I am hosting a scaled-down version of the page so you can experience the navigation first-hand.  I’ve removed the functioning search box, since there are no internal pages to be searched.