I finally completed the project I’ve been working on for the last month. I’m very happy with the result as well. I had the idea to create a music video tribute to Firestarter –the 1984 Stephen King movie to the tune of “Burn it Down” by Linkin Park. You can see all my thoughts and progress on it at my new site: AmateurEditor.com!
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Just thought I’d do some analysis of exactly how a well-designed website is constructed. If you check out PartyPoker.com, I will now break-down just what makes this site an excellent one to study and emulate. To begin with, there is a solid color-based scheme that well-suits the theme of the site. The green background in the header resembles the felt color of most gambling tables and brings a decent reference color –but the main body of the site is actually black! Still, the text blocks have a white background and the rather large footer is two different shades of gray. These are subtle color choices that actually work very well to distinguish different areas of the site but not overpower the viewer. The iconic symbols and buttons on the site are large but not wasteful of the space and the salmon-red color stands out perfectly against the subdued background.
Additionally, the main photo on the site showing 3 people is just perfect! The lighting of the subjects is clearly professionally done, there is a subtle color gradient behind them so they stand out slightly, and their shirt colors are a perfect match to the color scheme of the site –a well considered photo that shows some clear vision for how a “color palette” should dominate the design considerations of a site. Notice how the woman in red coordinates with the red “Play Now” button to the left, the white shirt wearing man blends with the white background of the text box below him, and the man in black blends (but does not disappear) with the black background? Simply perfect execution!
Subtle touches like the accent of red and white color swaths in the header also adhere to the color palette of the site –an excellent example of keeping a site clean but not without artistic flair.
Lastly, the menu system is clear and easy to understand. This cannot be understated. Clear, thoughtful menu structure is not as simple to execute as it may seem. I suggest showing your site to someone that isn’t familiar with the product at all to see if they can understand what the site is trying to convey. You may be surprised at what you learn!
While researching the band L7 I decided to find out where they got their name from. That took me on a journey through the wonders of Wikipedia I’ll never forget. While just the fact that the term “69” is there wasn’t enough, the term “Date 68” is the one that caught my eye. If there isn’t a punk rock song in there somewhere, I’ll be sad. I don’t know how long Wikipedia will keep up their article so I’ve decided to repost the text below the LJ cut for your reading dementia…
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I managed to miss the superbowl last Sunday -not that I cared that much about it. The only real bummer was the fact that I missed watching all those funny commercials. Well thanks to websites like this one:
http://dyn.ifilm.com/superbowlads/
I got to watch all of them to my heart’s content! Pretty funny stuff if you ask me.
I’m sooo excited about my new web hosting service! They finally transferred all my data from my old plan (so all my pics and web pages are back) but under this new plan I’ll be able to have more control over the web content. I’ll be able to prevent “hotlinking” of my data to sites I don’t authorize, I’ll have the ability to add password protected portions of my page, etc. I’m looking forward to learning some new stuff here!
By the way, if anyone is interested in the web hosting service I use, I pay $9.95/month for my plan through APlus.net click here for more information about the plan. There are cheaper plans out there (even through APlus.net) but I like the features I get here and I don’t miss the extra few bucks considering I don’t think I’ll ever have to worry about exceeding my monthly bandwidth limit! I’ve been with APlus.net for almost 8 years now and they’ve never let me down. 24 hr live phone support (that I have tested at 3am) and solid reliability. This is the company that other ISP’s go to to lease connections from for their businesses!