firstbasedesign

Web design concept for the week

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:28:50 +0000

My design concept for the week is the clothing label Superdry.

I recently completed a site for a client who provides accessories to many of the young fashion brands in the UK and abroad, and Superdry is one of them. Of course I viewed many of the fashion sites around to get a vibe for which direction I should take my clients site in, and whilst noseying around I came across the Superdry site and thought ‘Let me put my own spin on that’.

I wanted to add a little more of a funkier, textured element to (my take on) the site, and incorporate orange somewhat more into the pallete of the site, something which I think is quite symbolic with Superdry, and can be found emblazoned across many of their products (especially the good old windcheater jacket).

So here you go with Week 2 of my ‘One web design concept a week, weather permitting’ blog series.

Click the image below to embiggen …

One web design concept a week, weather permitting!

admin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:03:31 +0000

Whilst sat pondering, with a slight lull in web work (it’s been weeks of print work for a change). I decided to set myself a little design challenge, to create a web design concept each and every week (barring holidays, hospital stays and the like), for a few reasons; The first one being I enjoy it! Never a mouse far from hand, secondly it gives you a chance to work on visuals for a brand that you might not be posting a tender to any time soon! Thirdly, and if I remember correctly it’s something similar to what 37signals did a few years back (and of course others before, and since), where they scoured the web for high profile brands and applied their own visual take on matters.

Like I said it gives me a chance to have a little design fun-time, and if it gives a little inspiration to others, then my work here is done!!

First up this week – Starbucks (the coffee providing behemoth). It was whilst looking over the web, that I noticed the UK site was not really rocking, visually. The main US site is a nice, clean site, the UK one on the other hand….

I wanted to touch on the heritage of Starbucks, I know the brand was only established back in 1971 (or thereabouts), but I wanted to bring that to the fore somewhat, as they did have the headstart on the Cafe Neros, and Costa Coffees of this world. With it being such a large, US brand too, I thought the use of the good ol’ American Typewriter font was very apt. Earthy colours were the order of the day too, for obvious reasons, and with the strong ties to ‘Fair Trade’.

Enough waffle, click the image below to embiggen …

Interview with ‘Creative Boom’

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:09:10 +0000

I recently took part in an interview with Katy Cowan who runs the fantastic, online creative magazine ‘Creative Boom’. I touched on my background, and how I got into the field, my thoughts on what it’s like to be a creative, all peppered with a few light-hearted comments, jump on over there and take a look see!

firstbasedesign v3, new website goes live!

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:27:33 +0000

Well it took a good old while, but at last my new portfolio site has seen the light of day! And I’m pretty pleased with how it’s turned out.

It was putting aside some time in between client projects that was the problem, and a few design revisions along the way (about 3, or was it 4?), always a problem when you’re designing a site of your own, you are your ‘own worst critic’!

But hey-ho, it’s put in an appearance, and seems to be playing nicely, just a few IE quirks to iron out (did you expect anything different?) and we’re rocking!