TFSR website launched
Here we go: the second large website to be launched this week…
Now weighing in at about 100 pages more than it used to, the new Tools for Self Reliance website is a lot more useable, not only in terms of the standard of the coding and construction, but also in that it has made a lot of resources available to its audience.
Yes, this site has to communicate the message of what TFSR does as a charity, but it also has to fulfil a lot of other functions too: Handbooks, policies and other publications have now been made available online; there are several methods for making donations to the charity; and there are Latest News and Stories from Africa sections that demonstrate things happening.
Leading on from this last point is the aspect of this website that I am most pleased with: the fact that the content of the site is now back in the hands of the TFSR staff. Using WordPress as a CMS enables them to manage and update the content of the site as and when they need to. They are in control.
Spent Brothers website launched
The Spent Brothers Productions Gene Vincent website will finally get launched tomorrow.
Think of black leather and a dangerously unstable rock ‘n’ roll alcoholic and pill-popper, who was crippled for life as a young man in a motorcycle crash, whose very first record was a multi-million seller, and for whom performing on stage was an act of possession.
I decided to push my graphic design skills for this project and to move away from the muted colours and large amounts of [white] whitespace I usually gravitate towards. I also tried to avoid things getting too boxy. This is probaby most evident in the way I tackled the footer:
… a decision that also meant having to provide a low-graphics version for visitors using dial-up connections!
Spent Brothers is a man obsessed “micro-publisher dedicated to celebrating the music of Gene Vincent, disseminating detailed and accurate information on his work”. So the biggest challenge of the project was in conceptualizing the architecture of the site so it fulfills several different functions:
- Promotes the book
- Provides a way for keeping track of the various addenda and corrections to the book as new information becomes available.
- Presents the articles, autographed items and other Gene Vincent related data.
- Is searchable!
Hopefully we’ve achieved that: the feedback from user-testing was positive, now all we’ve got to do is wait and see what the hardcore fans think…