So your client used a WYSIWYG?

The Designers' Sympathy - The Clients' Education
Dear God, if I could provide some of the screen shots from the sites clients brought to me based of their own WYSIWYG website builder! This is both maybe one of the most frustrating and also the most promising situations that arise in my experiences. Two quick experiences I'd like to share.

The first one came with a client I had about 3-4 years ago. He had built a site to promote his product and the site had become so clustered, he finally decided to direct his look and feel to something more "webby". Previous to my re-design, anything that could rotate, blink or flash DID!! Links flashed, stars rotated, etc..

He asked for a re-design for a site that had a lot of good information and alot of bad "webby" stuff. I was excited at the possibilities. At the time I was still somewhat unexperienced myslef and solutions diverted to sites with white text on black backgrounds - you know, to stand apart from everyone else. Both of us had gone in the wroong direction with the best of intentions. In those days well written content, optimization and non-distracting design, unfortunately weren't well-interpeted practices.

My client wanted to present the site well, but in sharing the design process with him, he still requested an appealing site, but hoped I could keep as many of the blinks, flashes and rotating thing-a-ma-doos as I could. I killed them all in the first design. And now that I looked at it I may have moved it from one bad design to another. It was terminated by the client within a couple years. The site was off a reasonable builder if I remember right. And I think they may have even offered some templates.

The other WYSIWYG builder was more of a pain to work in. The website builder converted your files to it's own file extension. I guess this is good for some form of protection against something down the road. When uploaded, the files seemed to save as regular html files. Somehow we got around this after a half a day of trying to figure it out, but it was a painful process.

This particular client didn't have the flashing, rotating or blinking circus pages, but instead had linked extremely large image files that were sized down in the code to his pages. Some of his pages took minutes to load. That's loss of viewers who, like myself, click away after seconds. being that most small clients don't know or don't care to reduce the sizes of images or create thumbnail versions, I had no problem fixing this for him.

To The Clients
So here's one for those who don't want to spend the moeny on a designer now, but hope to later. USE THE TEMPLATES!! They are most likely built correctly by professionals. Look for the templates which are layed out in your desired style and have imagery layed out in your style. The text is easy to update. Ask yourself how much information will YOUR site have. If you go after a template that holds the information/content you think your business will have in five years, keep in mind without all that content it will look empty for five years. Is the time spent searching templates that fit your content and size worth it? Yes, I believe so. Isn't your business worth taking that time?

You can provide the designer with all of your largest images and we'll compress them down for you. Also, if you want a sharp design, don't send poor and pixelated images. Track down or create vector images for logos and artwork specific to your business. Find stock images related to your website and mark the links to these images. I now tell my clients to go to http://www.istockphoto.com and create a lightbox or send me the links. They have cheap images there with high quality.

Web Design - Business Interface Engineering

My most recent project was pro bono (free) work I did for a friend to help him in his career search.

Two positive aspects of the result were the header and the push for a more professional look. Now I'm gonna give my current boss some props ... in our small discussions about sites with a white background versus sites with a colored bg, the white bg in the content area proved a plus. With a simple small site such as this one and a learning experience from previous sites (white text on dark backgrounds and I watched the project dissappear into oblivion), I made a different choice.

The other aspect was the header background graphic - a mistake that turned out better. When doing the background graphic for the header I was going for a simple gradient. In my Photoshop file, I made the image 1 pixel two wide and when I saw the result, it looked better. It added something to it, not sure quite what it was; but it just looked better.

The client liked it and the Google analytics on the site's first day were better than expected. Some of those stats may have been carryover from last night's tweeks, so this next week will tell more. But I can share with the client areas of interest. He had a targeted location where this site was to be primarily viewed from, and although those results didn't show, he made it out of Texas.

The improvement on this project was that I learned I need to get to a design quiker. Although I did work in more of a development process (put the content in and worked the design around the content instead of the other way around), too much time went into finding the right design. I stopeed looking at dozens of templates at one time and just continued to build the site then come back and upgrade the design features to more attractive design.

Here's the remaining pages. All the content, including images within the content, was supplied by the client.

3D Model Treats: Animation, 3D

While studying as a student at ITT Technical Institute, I had the advantage of working with 3D Studio Max for a few years. Below are varous samples from the 3D Collection.

Not too broadcast: Video - Pick 5 (KPXB)

The sister promo to "Customer Profile" was this spot.

Again, Charles Pape was the person that allowed this oppurtunity to edit this, as he was the public affairs producer for the station. I just got to slice-n-dice a little and used two or three provided clips with motion and transparency settings for the background effects.

And using a countdown, I utilized that infamous countdown clip always seen in film. In te end, the sound, voice, script and graphics came together well. The promo aired for a while until the station identity changed.

If I remember right, I may have changed th blue background coolor to a color more in the greener tone for the revisions that came later for a sister station.

Not too broadcast: Video - Customer Profile (KPXB)

After working for KPXB for a few years, I finally got a chance to do a promo. The script, graphics and voice over were provided. I used the graphics with a few layers of moving bars and some stock audio to create the clip which aired for a few years. Charles Pape was the producer and I was grateful for the opportunity he gave me on this.

I enjoyed this project and it seemed a long time waiting. Later on, this script was altered for a sister station and the promos aired over there. Eventually, PAX changed their marketing material and then their identity and the promo was expired.

(After initially uploading the video file, I removed it - to view the promo in full length - send a request through with yuor name and company)

Meanwhile, enjoy the screen shots ...

Until SWF ... Animation - CF Ware

So that whole Starbucks networking system thing does actually happen occasionally. I went to Starbucks and was studying some design and development. I took a ColdFusion book with me and ended up in a conversation with a prospective freelance client.

I was still fairly new to the filed, and think I stay may be in the beginning stages of it now, 3 years later, and I found a few revelations that day. One revelation occured in a conversation about html, and it was that I wasn't as stupid and uneducated as I thought I was. As the conversation continued, the other revelation came to my while my eyes glazed over; I was, maybe, in fact, stupid and uneducated as I thought I was.

And at this time, I was still writing my contact number on the back of other peoples business cards, some how a potential job was created out of this. What the clientr asked for was a simple but sharp animation for his website. Living at my sisters at the time and working on two other projects (my portfolio site and FreakoSuave) and less than a year after getting my degree in multimedia, I was starting to think I had finally arrived. I was busy, but this took priority becuas eof the prospect it could have for future work.

He wanted a lightning effect and the orange lightining was part of his identity so I couldn't alter that or the final location of it above the name. I went for the lightning effect inside the blue sphere which was also a part of the final logo - if I remember right. I ended up creating a simple frame-by-frame animation. The animation was a 10-15 second animation.

I never got the final feedback on the project and upon a follow up later on, he had shut down the website. Who would shut down their website? (My own future had not arrived yet to assist me in my judgement).

As of today, May 29th 2009, whatI have to showcase this is some screenshots. Until I get my portfolio site live again, I couldn't upload SWF's. Or can I? I think most blogger SWF's are linked to an external location. Check back on this later for a live version. In the meantime, here's the screenshots.

Look Ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Websites - Freako Suave

This job came to me during the process of building my portfolio website, so the both of them became a learning experience. The creativity of this site was motiviating, but also frustrating. In the end - I think it became a litle too flashy even for a musicians site.

This site was also released in 2005, but I think only lasted until 2007. The client played on his own and with this band. The updates didn't get posted too often and the site died. Was it because of the site? This is one of those questions I ask for all the projects that fail. I guess if I didn't care, I wouldn't enjoy working in this field, but I did care.

I had worked on another design for this site which was a little more outside the box, and becuase the client was looking for something different and possibly had hopes of self-maintenance on the site, the web design was toned down. But here are the screenshots:

Look Ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Websites - BHCreative

The first live website I created was my portfolio website. While I created the logo bad in the design of the website, I created the website based of another site I saw which was simple.

I released this site in 2005. By 2008 it was losing it's flare. I was ready fir an overhaul. I wanted to do a Flash website, and haven't yet. I didn't like the address - it was too long. www.bhcreativemediadesign.com. This link no longer works. I let the domain name expire and I am planning to launch my next portfolio site from a new name on a server that allows a little more.

This site was hosted off FreeServers.com. I was satisfied with the service, but I was looking to move my site to ASP, which I didn't have the capabilities for with that site.

I think I'd have to lean more towards some lighter colors and a better, cleaner, look and feel on the next release. Instead of relasing something out there sooner, and being less satisfied with th results, I hope to build something I like, then release it.

Here are some of the other pages from that site:

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - Hobo Interactive

One of the more casual, and possibly most offensive in presentation. Hobo Interactive was another daydream product that started with a small sick laugh and esculated to a fully offensive branding design.

The idea derived from brainstorming a name to represent the type of services I hoped to provide. Cheap service to those who didn't want to pay the high price but still desired some quality. I had fun packaging this idea. And had fun creating it.

The hat on the lower right was created in 3D studio max. I put a single spotlight on it to display the shadow. The "Hi" inside the circle was where the laughter came from. I think I was probably drawing this somewhere and luaghed to myself. Meanwhile, someone probably walked by me thinking what a wierd little man. I thought of the video advertisement for this. The "Hi" logo drawn with a finger on the morning dew of a car window. As the water on the logo starts to drip down, you'd see the hobo in the backseat, with his clothes, his hat, his vodka, his laptop, and his business card. I still hope to shoot it soon, so don't steal this pleasure away from me. I can't afford the prescriptions. And it's also a greeting, "Hi". A beggining. "This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship"

I believe this was previous to later attempts at the full package, the letter head and business card. I may not remember this correctly, but I think it was inspired by a job rejection I got from a design company. It really deflated the blow a little when this design company, "Hill" and something or other sent me a branded envelop and letterhead to tell me I didn't match any openings at the time. In my small efforts and big mind, I was honored to be rejected so professionally. (Got that one ladies?). And so this collage was given life and existence.

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - BH Creative

Wow, why am I posting this one again. In color here. Before I had any conversations with others about design and logos, my creative little dreamer came up with this big no-no. Not really appealing anymore, the maiin font is probably a poor choice. And the icon or symbol come only in a Photoshop effect metal glaze.

It worked well on the web though. Unfortunately, the domain name expired and I have no portfolio site. Hence, welcome to my effort. One of the worst parts was that my pride & joy in this idea was misinterpeted by several. The icon is intended to display an slightly abstract representation of the letters "b-h-c" for "bh creative". The "h" is capital. The line between the "b" and the "c" make up the middle ine of the "H" - there's a name for that line which a professional logo designer would know and most likely have to explain in a proposal I would guess.

So here's the downer of my designs. the one where you have to explain it to mom and whoever else looks at the fride. "No, see it? SEE IT? It's RIGHT there? It's the line between the 'b' and the ... nevermind ..." The design you have to explain. And no one wants and explanation. they want clarity in design. Most branding probably doesn't need a tag of explanation on it. But it got a little better. It was the base of an idea that may develop.

The hat was a sketch that drew my little misunderstood icon closer to my heart. It was like that loving hug a mom could only give her smallest ugly kid. And no-one else could touch that feeling or would ever want to. Get out of here you ugly little !@#? !!!

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - Creative Lab

This, I think, is the first logo work I experimented with. I enjoyed it at the time, but this logo fails without the color - and I'm sure someone out there says it fails with the color too. Keep in mind, I said FIRST LOGO, so hold the arrogance for now.

Always brainstorming for a name, hence the blog name, this was one of my first attempts. But a generic name like this, not personalised, I think would get a bad rap if all the work behind that logo fell short of professional. And at the time, it did.

It's getting late now, but these entries for this part of my series, "Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge!" is motivating. Now my arrogance might show when I say, after a few entries, some of the self-harshness is deflating. What I realized about this though, was that it was purely digital. Designed in Fireworks, with the Fireworks alien effect in the background. Probably not the best idea to use a built-in feature, with little customization, as a trademark for your logo. I think they have legal names for it.

NOTE: No individuals were paid for this logo in any way. It is strictly a gallery object measuring and observing technique, education and growth within this area of my career. Hell, I didn't even pay myself. I started too. I put a buck in the jar, but took it out the next day out of self-loathing for my current state of affairs at the time. Note, also, the desired web presence.

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - Admo Energy

What's that there? Is that color? No grey-scale or black and white? BAD designer! BAD!

With this design, I, of course, was not set out to design a logo for the client, but to create a website for the client. The client had no useable or appealing logo that cuaght me, so this was a side-project. The results were that the client paid me for the logo design work and the website was scrapped twice and remains as a stagnet temporary page years later to this day with this logo right smack dab in the middle of it. If you're actually taking the time to read the older blog entries first, you know the score is now - logo design: 3, web: 0.

I know it looks familiar. I think it unconciously came from something I saw somewhere. One day driving, I thought I found the hidden source of inspiration, but I didn't make a note of it right then and forgot it. A short entry here, I don't have any other packaged items available to post. (Or I don't want to look right now). This one suprised me a little when the results came out the way they did. The website had some positive aspects to it but was most likely too amatuerish and artsy to market for the business. And on the site, I went white text on black backgrounds, which I see work someplaces, but it hasn't popped out in any of my design work. It worked okay with this logo though.

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - Mundotribe

This one was perhaps the most researched and abstract logo design. Also while working at PAX as a master control operator (by now, you may see I did a lot of dreaming and doodling there - but I still did my job!) my co-worker began talking to me about this project. Her boyfriend at the time was in a ban and they needed a logo. After explaining to her a few times I was more of a web designer than a graphics designer (By this time my work experience score was logos: 2, websites:0) I finally accepted the challenge but promptly warned her I was not a logo designer. None the less, I did the research, played around in the sketch-pad and ended upp with this.

Here's the lesson in this project. I learned more about my future as a freelance designer through this process. My first business meeting was how I envisioned it. In the clients backyard, at night, while they played poker and drank beer and we all smoked our cigarrettes and discussed the grandiose plans we had for this marketing and identity. I was so excited driving home, I felt accomplished and talented. They liked the results as did I. Someday, I can pull out and post some of the other ideas on this logo. I think I had about four diffent final designs with tens of variations in color and design. It narrowed down to two concepts: a round drum or a character tiki logo.

And this next part is not for the purpose of knocking them down any. They were two successful and talented individuals with more drive than I had at the time, but one thing was overlooked and that was the payment of the project. Although I initally offered this to them for free (mostly my insecurity told me my designs were amatuerish and not worth payment yet) they insisted on creating a payment. We discussed the options of royalty payments and of a straight forward buyout of ownership. Niether one was ever resolved or paid. In the end they chose this logo which was straight from the sketchpad to photoshop and was intended for developmental purposes. And low and behold, I saw later, one of my worst nightmares, the some non-vector based logo stretched out across a page or an area.

They have still used this logo as of last I had scene, wait, hold on, let me check ... yes, they're still using it. So the positive side, is that it's a successful identity. The client liked it. And its useable. As an artist; a designer, I suceeded. As a freelacer, a contract employee, in business, I failed. Lessons learned in this project:

• Written contracts are necessary (we tried that route later on and it never worked out either, I finally gave in)
• Never send anything but a final product to the client - maybe THIS should be included in the written contract.
• Friendships with coworkers can survive contract work with their boyfriends, especially if they break up.
• Vector! Vector! Vector!

Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge! Logos - 529 Landers

While I was working at PAX as a master control operator I'd do a lot of dreaming but didn't always have a lot of knowledge behind it. My first logo I ever created was for my website, bhcreative media&design. On occasional smoke breaks I'd chat with a guy named John that worked for a custom home company. Talking to him sometimes was exciting and educational. At other times it was discouraging. I was never going to be that focused, motivated and smart.

I remember one time he pointed out solidly, logos have to look without color. So I always try to think of how they look in black and white and greyscale. Now that I work for a company that handles designs, and I work for an employer who is color-blind, I realize one of those life lessons, people don't see things the way I do.

My friend Jay had gotten his own website. I already liked his title better than my own. I had taken this nickname with "Wolf" further than he cared I think and set an identity for him he may not have wanted. In the end, I came up with somethiing that popped to me, but never really cuaght with him. This is why you design logos for the client, for the client, and not for your portfolio. It's called a provided service job. You're providing a service for them, not the other way around.

I think once you got somthing that looks good and clean in greyscal or blacck and white, I think, what you're supposed to do is apply color to it. My guess is that the first stage would have even been in less detail, more outlined. And here's the truth for me, why I am not a professional at this. I design in color. What pops to me is style and color. Below I threw in a few extras. he snazzy design and the applicable design. The applicable is th one where I look to see the multiplicity and duplication of this logo or identity. Hoes it work on business cards, on the web, on lettterhead? Packaging an idea and presenting it on different mediums is one of those aspects of design I enjoy.

I'm, for the most part, a brand name junkie. I see the recognizable identity marketed across different platforms and I get a creative juice that gets a taste of something good. If they marketed and packaged a product for me, I'd unfortunately, have less tendencies to do the right research on the full value or benefits of the product and get subjected to being a potential customer all to the thoughts of, "Ooh, that looks purty!"

Enjoy the last one - no paragraph to package it with, just a sore thumb on the bottom of the entry.

What I can't create is on-demand - give me some time

But there is no time. While I give myself a rest for yet another night - waiting for inspiration, hundreds of designers are engulfed in Flash Actionscripting, downloading plg-ins, and creating eye popping templates with simplicity (and so it seems as I see hundred of templates out there).

So where do I start? I think usually to get on a path, you start at the beginning and go to the end.

My showcase entries will show the work I feel accomplished about and my growing entries will show the work I still have lots of room to grow in, Don't get me wrong, even at my best, I have room to grow. So let's get out all my show and tell crap off the ack so maybe I can start doing what I thought of tonight, and using this as an expiremental blog - to recieve feedback - and more importantly, initiate feedback and take action.

This first section is called - "Look ma! Let's put it on the fridge!"