comicIDIOT: Version Two

[comicIDIOT]

So, it's been a good run with my web site thus far. It looks great visually. But I hated all the images it uses, every aspect of the design uses an image. From the body to the menu.

My new design will be entirely of CSS3 & HTML design with PHP running the client area. I'm hoping swivels' CMS can help me out there as everything else on the site will be HTML and won't need a CMS, but it's something I'd like to look into in the future. Now, this design is far from becoming a working version on my site but I'll hopefully have an HTML mock up in a month or so after I complete all design elements. Here is the home page and the client side looking at event details.

Compare that to what I had for an earlier design, and I think the Revamp works on every level. The viewer is shown my portfolio upon viewing the site. The Introduction page has been removed and included in the About. Which I think is a big plus.

A new element to Version 2 is the ability to Log in. Here clients will be able to log in and request services, check up on progress and post details about events that I am hired for/to. The ability to log in is there to merely aide people in acquiring my services. Usually calls a bit to personal for first contact and no one really knows what to write in an e-mail. So, the client registers then "hires" me and I'm sent the details. We'll continue to converse through e-mail.

I'm also thinking about opening the hiring to anybody, whether registered or not. I'll need to think about it as the clients will have no real control of the event details after it's posted. The details image has an edit option but I'm not sure if I'll keep it. Same with ability to delete events.

I'm also not positive about the update system. If the events are going to be uneditable and most conversations outside of the site, there is no point for it. I'll see. I'd also like to add a text box to have one testimonial written in after each event is closed. Currently, I'll have no where to display testimonials (maybe About?) but it'll be good to collect them anyways.

As for the Gallery on the Details. All I'd like to do is type in a gallery ID (perhaps from some photo gallery like CPG where a script will fetch three images from the gallery and link to the rest. I'm not expecting a horde of jobs so it wouldn't hurt if I had to add a gallery by hand.

I got many words on my previous logo so I set about to accommodate them. One big thing was that there was too much emphasis on the word "IDIOT." Despite words for a new, third colour, I did not comply. I couldn't get anything to look great with three colours, maybe farther down the road!

I choose a gray background because intended blacks and whites appear pure. Overall site colours (logo, text) have been desaturated a bit so they aren't as sharp and distract the eye when looking at portfolios.

Any opinions and ideas are welcomed!
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-Alex

[comicIDIOT]

Ditched the last beta design. New, colourful concept.



Here's the old one all mocked up in HTML. I decided to go with it because it felt to depressing and wasn't working correctly on different browsers.
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-Alex

[Will_W]

I like it
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TI smote the Beta Testers for their insolence and rested. SynThesIs 14
He doesn't have to wake up, you know. I have a laser, and we have a garbage disposal. - Pintsize

What does the GUI say about his fill level? IT'S OVER 9000!!!

[KermMartian]

[comicIDIOT]

[KermMartian]

Haha, nice. I might end up making some font face and color choice selection recommendations on that, but the design looks really nice so far.
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[comicIDIOT]

[comicIDIOT]

Check out the Fifth Beta. Similar to the Fourth Beta in every way except of some style changes. My friend designed it for me and I did the coding.

Opinions? Which one do you guys like? Anything I should change, add subtract?
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-Alex

[KermMartian]

[TheStorm]

Yeah they both look nice but 4th beta is a little nicer IMO and on both of them the logo looks rather small. I mean for that whole name recognition factor I'd make it a bit bigger.

Edit: Also be consistent with your category naming, some are plural and others are not.
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<Michael_V> or create a Borg collective and call it The 83+
<Michael_V> Lower your slide cases and prepare to be silent linked. Memory clears are futile.

[comicIDIOT]

[comicIDIOT]

Did some changes to Betav5. Clicking the images, which still need text of some sort, will anchor the page to the associated portfolio.

Currently, the thumbnails inside each portfolio don't link anywhere. I still need to add "Back to Top" links. Thoughts on this method? The larger images themselves will likely be on a third page or something, still need to think how.



Farther down the road, I'm going to merge v4 & v5 together, perhaps keeping the layout of v5 and the colours of v4. I still have some thinking to do!
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-Alex

[comicIDIOT]

[KermMartian]

Let's copy-edit your About page.

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Services

Alex Glanville -t-h-r-i-v-e-s- strives to provide experience, skill, creativity and his -c-o-l-o-u-r-f-u-l- colorful personality -i-n-t-o- with every job. Alex offers free -s-e-r-v-i-e-s- services to any location within a fifteen mile radius of California area code 95132-2820. Donations are accepted in the form of cash, -p-e-r-s-o-n-a-l-c-h-e-q-u-e- -&- personal checks, or -P-a-y-P-a-l- PayPal. Alex -h-a-s- also hopes to turn his photography passion and vision into a non-profit organization -.- -T-h-e- -o-r-g-a-n-i-z-a-t-i-o-n- -w-i-l-l- to help budding photographers elevate their photography to another level. If you have any questions about working with Alex please get in contact! If you wish to inquire about services please see the footer below! (ease up on the exclamation marks)

Alex will do his best to photograph anything you need! Don't see a portfolio for what you are looking for? Contact Alex! There's a chance he has covered the subject before but hasn't -r-e-a-c-h-e-d- -t-h-e- -m-i-n-i-m-a-l- -l-i-m-i-t- -t-o- -a-d-d- -a- -n-e-w- published a portfolio. All portfolios contain a maximum of nine photos, and a minimum of three. These photos represent the best, (remove comma) and most current quality of his work. Alex tries to display photos no older than six months, but this is not a guarantee for the fields he photographs less frequently.

About Alex
Education

I have attended a -S-seven -W-week Photography Workstudy at Maine Media College under their Workshops program in the Summer of 2009. I was mentored and aided by Prairie Stuart-Wolff.

Personality

I'm fun, lively, and get to business. I am driven by the things that intrigue me and inspired by the creativity and zeal of my fellow photographers. Friends and strangers find me gentle, caring and thoughtful.

Experience

I've been -s-h-o-o-t-i-n-g- -w-i-t-h- -c-a-m-e-r-a-s- an avid photographer since 2005, starting with a 7-M-e-g-a-P-i-x-e-l- MP DiMage Minolta G400. When that died in late 2007 I -r-e-c-i-e-v-e-d- received a 12-M-e-g-a-P-i-x-e-l- MP Kodak V1253 -i-n- the following January. From there I continued to pursue photography-,- and -e-v-e-n- videography with the camera's 720p HD -V-video -&- and -S-stereo -A-audio -C-capabilities. In May -o-f- 2008 I -b-o-u-g-h-t- invested in a Canon EOS Rebel XTi, my first -D-i-g-i-a-l- Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera-;-, commonly -k-n-o-w-n- -a-n-d- referred -t-o-o- to as a DSLR.

After purchasing my DSLR I started to pursue photography even more: shooting community softball games in which -t-h-a-t- my friends and I participated -i-n-, landscapes outside my city, and -s-t-a-r-t-e-d- -s-h-o-o-t-i-n-g- portraits of my friends. By the end of 2008, I had set foot in a variety of fields: landscape, sports, and portraiture. Not much changed until the end of 2009 when I photographed my first wedding and my first product. -S-h-o-r-t-l-y- -a-f-t-e-r- -2-0-1-0- -s-t-a-r-t-e-d- In early 2010, I -w-a-s- -o-n- joined my college's newspaper as a sports photographer and was sub-contracted to photography the Northern California Paintball Tournament every two months beginning in February.
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[comicIDIOT]

[KermMartian]

[comicIDIOT]

Updated BETAv5. Larger logo, newer photos and starting to implement some of the styles found in BETAv4, most notably on the About page. The colour is also being implemented. If you'd like to follow progress, go up to 'View > Page Styles > Secondary Style' in your browser menu. I'm trying to figure out why this style won't carry from page to page, any advice/help there would be appreciated!

Some background changes include more CSS files. The colour has been entirely exported to it's own CSS, to ease the creation of another/more colour themes.

Fixed most mistakes found on the About page.
Added a second page for Information regarding my services. This page includes fee's and secondary photography services. This page will also be home to other information clients, viewers and anyone else may need to access. This is accesible from "About" inside the box at right. The link to the page will appear in more places farther down the road.


Also, is anyone getting a colourless theme upon loading? Refreshing seems to fix it, but it's weird.
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-Alex

[comicIDIOT]

Updated About. Added a more noticeable link to important information, such as cost and camera equipment.

I recently discovered I can create pages in WordPress so I'll be trying to fit my site into a Word Press theme, which will allow for better updating of my portfolio's and information.

That colourless theme was related to AdBlock. Being blonde, I had accidently blocked all outside content from loading, so I wasn't getting any styling.
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-Alex

[comicIDIOT]

I have done a lot of work since April. Site now sports a PHP backend, and am using several facebook API's to implement interactivity with photos which will be released hopefully either this week or next.

Some more updates are minor size changes in the view.php file. Instead of having the code for EVERY image and portfolio, they've been induced in their own page and called via an include(). The size went from 29kb to 12kb also makes editing individual files easier (however, editing a mistake out of 50+ files is more tedious than just one file!)

Also, S+WPrograms from TI-Freakware made a new logo for me and says I should use the two dots as a motif, which I'm all for. I'll likely have a favicon soon then! I really like the logo myself and will more than likely use it but I'd like to get some opinions before I swap logos out.



I've also added a new page to the site, albeit unimportant, which details any changes made throughout the public version of the site. You can find the link at any time within the footer.

It's manually updated and I'll look into working an RSS feed into the updates, but I don't think it's that important for an RSS feed...
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-Alex

[elfprince13]

I like COMICIDIOT, but Photography kind of looks tacked on to the bottom. Also, does it have to have that blank space?
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