Check out the newest mixtape cover I designed. This one is for Bravura Magazine’s newest release, “Forces of Nature: World Tour.” After several renditions, I went with the version you witness before you. I tried to incorporate the whole “world tour” theme, but also go in a completely different direction than the previous cover that I also designed. I really wanted it to stand out.
What’s up everyone? This is the third and final part of “How I Designed the new Ajaxxx.com.” Let’s recap, shall we?
In the first part, I talked about the planning that went into the site. I analyzed the old site from top to bottom, assessing the areas that needed improvement. In addition, I also made notes of the things I really liked about the old site and how I’d carry them over. In the second part, I went further. I got much more technical and talked about things like the page numbers, the tag cloud, and the social media elements; I also talked about things I chose not to use.
So now, in this third edition, I’m going to tie it all together. I’m going to show you what plugins I used and didn’t use (and why), some of the back-end things I did to make my life easier, and also some additional stuff about the planning. And of course, I’ll go into what I did to finalize it all.
In the last edition of “How I Designed the new Ajaxxx.com”, I talked about the planning that went into the site. I overanalyzed the old website from top to bottom, making notes of all the issues I had with it. From lack of picture and video support on some of the pages to how long it took to update the site, there were a bunch of things that bothered me. At the same time though, there were elements that I borrowed from the old site too (like the Sindhi writing you see in the background, along with the song quotes in the banners above). It was a pretty drawn out process, but it was all worth it in the end.
In this entry, I’ll dig deeper. With the planning behind us, I’ll talk about some of the cool things I implemented, some things I chose not to do (and my reasons behind them), and the most fun part…the challenges I encountered.
So with the site now live as can be, I wanted to do something where I talk about HOW I created the site. There was A LOT of work involved in this, and it probably took me the last two years (with the last six months being the most intense). I’ll talk about the planning behind it, the designing, the coding, the problems I encountered, and tying it all together. If anything, I hope that I can help other graphic/web designers with their projects too. I’m all about building…so let’s build.
Okay, so let’s take a trip back into time. I’d say about 2-3 years ago, I decided that I wanted to redo the site. I mean, from top to bottom, I wanted to overhaul the entire site and start fresh. I kept getting comments from friends about things they didn’t like about the site, and there were lots of issues that I had with the site too. I also wanted the new site to incorporate more of my Indian side, but in a creative way…nothing corny, nothing too gimmicky. I wanted to represent right. So, it would have to be about more about fonts and paisley designs – I’d have to dig DEEPER. That probably challenged me the most, but that’s a good thing , right?
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