Taking Care of Business! part 3: MY DOCS ONLINE

Part 3 of this series (just recapping all the projects we've completed over the past couple months!) talks about the work done for My Docs Online, a secure online file transfer service that's been a success since 1999. Huddy Design created the new logo, redesigned the website, and developed a custom Flash Banner for the new My Docs Online home page.

Steve Campbell, co-founder of My Docs Online, contacted me a while back about a complete redesign of their company identity. As usual, I started with the logo (You can check out the logo redesign process here) and shortly after, moved on to redesigning the website. I'll never forget one of Steve's first comments to me about the original website design: "We don't think our website is old school, we KNOW it's old school!" too funny. TRUE at the time, but funny. ;) So, I knew my plan of action was clear: carefully redesign their website without shocking long-time clients by the completely updated look. Incorporate a modern feel to match the new logo, implementing current trends in web design to reflect their place in the market as a top competitor- bringing modernism and their long-lasting reputation together.

The old My Docs Online logo:


The NEW My Docs Online logo:



So, I got to work on the new design. I knew right away that I wanted to use a custom Flash Banner for the home page, and I'm so Glad Steve was on the same page from the start. They're a huge trend right now for a reason: Flash banners are AWESOME for getting a lot of information across without making people feel overwhelmed, and they can be used to help present the company's biggest selling points in an entertaining and effective fashion, when designed in a sort of tabbed format. And since Flash also gives developers the flexibility to build interactivity into any Flash component, this also gives users the ability to control which points they want to see and when (if developed effectively, of course). This makes any website even more user-friendly because it's just fun and more intriguing! So professional stock photography, catchy taglines for each selling point, and custom controls (pause/play, skip to a slide) and transitions all came into play for this project.

The home page design, incorporating the current trend of using a Flash Banner to communicate the company's best selling points:

concept 1a
concept 1b
concept 2a
concept 2b

Once Steve and his team decided on the new look, I got to work on the development phase of the Flash component. Aside from developing the visuals, I also wanted to build it in a way that the client could easily update himself; an XML file was developed and utilized to accomplish this part of the task, which included the amount of time each slide was displayed, image paths to read in, and all titles and captions to be displayed. So all of these are now accessible to the Client for easy updates to the content the Flash Banner displays... Images, titles, captions, timing of each slide- it’s all there for him to update whenever he wants to. A great time-saver for both of us, and ultimately, a huge money saver for him to be able to make changes himself!

the final design, live on the all-new My Docs Online website:


See the Flash Banner and the rest of the new design in action at www.mydocsonline.com and read what Steve has to say about the new look here, on the MDO blog. (Thanks for the shout out!)

Steve and the rest of the My Docs Online team were so easy to work with, it was awesome. Thanks to them for the opportunity!!! Best of luck with the new look. :)

Taking Care of Business! part 2: STORE-IT

Soon after the re-design and development of Hudson Shuffleboards wrapped up, Huddy Design signed on Charlie Koeller, Founder and President of Store-It, a large scale storage facility company based in Montana. Store-It was started to give owners of boats, RVs and other large modes of transportation, a place to keep them. Store-It also provides general storage containers as well for everyday storage needs. Given its location (Montana, right by Flathead Lake) and lack of other storage options in the area, Charlie has come up with such a smart, practical solution for a company if you ask me! The only problem he really had was his website. It had no SEO techniques incorporated, which meant the only business he was getting was by word of mouth. And the layout design was.... well, let's just say Charlie and I agreed, a major facelift was past due!! :)

Before:





If you're a graphic/web designer, I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was to completely transform his web presence. :) With Charlie's goal in mind (to keep things as simple and clean as possible), I got to work. We definitely utilized the awesome work of his photographer in the extremely minimalist design of his new website, and kept the overall tone of the design as professional and straight-forward as possible.

The result of which is this 3-page, elastic layout (content scales automatically to fit the size of the user's browser):





To see the Store-It website in action, visit www.Store-It.us.com

All the best to Charlie and the Store-It crew! Pleasure to work with you guys. :)

Taking Care of Business! part 1: HUDSON SHUFFLEBOARDS

A LOT has been going on for Huddy Design since July 15th, let me tell you. :) All great things, and I am so grateful for that. I'm hoping to do a more detailed review on some of these projects in the future, but I just want to do a quick recap for now... short and sweet!

First up: HUDSON SHUFFLEBOARDS; ECOMMERCE WEBSITE RE-DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT (V2)

As you may know, Hudson Shuffleboards is run by my brother, Will Hudson. Within just a few short years, Will has taken over the shuffleboard market and his boards are now a top commodity to some of the biggest dealers in the market, even Amazon! His tagline is "Quality Shuffleboards at an Unbeatable Price" and his target market is just about anyone who wants to have a good time. :)

So, when Will asked me to take on the redesign and development, I kept all that in mind; "Design something that reflects quality above the competitors, unbeatable but fair and respectable prices, and incorporate an easy-going and entertained lifestyle... something that people of all ages would want to be a part of."

As always, a handful of other specs came into play which I might review sometime later. I'll just say that the main goal of this project, along with incorporating the overall feel I just talked about, was converting Version 1 of the site from being in 90% Flash, into a completely more optimized layout- one that was also a lot easier and just more accessible for Client updates and faster user-navigation.

Before:



After:



Like any piece of art- no matter its form- this project will never be completely done as there are a few items we'd like to enhance a little more. But so far, the response has been great for Will. Which makes me happy too! :)

You can check out the rest of Will's site at www.HudsonShuffleboards.com

Next up: STORE-IT; WEBSITE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

Logo Concepts for Jesse Billauer's new clothing line

About a week ago, my brother-in-law, Mike Cox was browsing around facebook and saw a post from Jesse Billauer, saying he was looking for a logo and clothing designer for his new clothing line. (For those of you who don't know who Jesse is, DEFINITELY check out his bio here because his life story is incredible; Pro surfer at 17 years of age, suffered a complete spinal cord injury after hitting a shallow sandbar, leaving him a quadriplegic, and is now a motivational speaker and founder of Life Rolls On- non-profit foundation dedicated to raise awareness about spinal cord injuries.... yeah, pretty amazing, to say the least!!) After Mike called me up to let me know about Jesse's post, I emailed him no more than a minute after I found his site and read his story. I definitely wanted to help out!

He got back to me right away, and after a totally refreshing conversation with him, I got to work on his new logo within the hour; Jesse told me he wants his new clothing line to not just be directed at surfers but towards athletic, outdoorsy people, both guys and girls... and wants it to have a totally unique and just rad feel to it. I was pretty excited when I heard that because anything athletic is right up my alley. And on top of that, knowing that it would be for an inspiring guy like him, I was totally excited to see what I could cook up for him. So, here's what I came up with:





So we'll see what comes of these. Thoughts and comments are welcome, as always!

Another point I wanted to mention in this post... Jesse also said he's interested in seeing just a ton of people's ideas and that he's open to just about anything... that for him, it's not about limiting his new line to one certain look, but it's about encouraging all kinds of ideas and creativity and seeing what different people have to offer through art. Again, pretty amazing, to say the least... especially from a designer's point of view!!! :) So if anyone is interested in coming up with some designs for Jesse's new line, send me your contact info (email me at sarah@huddydesign.com).

Lastly, big thanks to Mike for passing along the info- I always appreciate a recommendation! :)

Wedding Invitations - a whole new challenge!

Well, our wedding is quickly approaching, and it's almost time to mail out our invitations. :) From the beginning, I wanted to design the entire invitation from start to finish for a couple reasons. One being I love to design. No doubt about it. 2- It would be another opportunity for me to flex my creative muscles, taking on a new challenge. And naturally, anytime we take on a task, we learn something new. So this time, I'd learn even more about print design. The 3rd and biggest reason: Ryan and I have always been a completely unique couple and always will be. And we're definitely unique individuals (which I see as a good thing, for sure!) so having that said, I was highly doubtful we'd be able to find a template or pre-designed invitation that would suit us perfectly anyway. So there was no question about it- I wanted to design our invitations!! :)

2 months later.... I finally finished the designs. I did NOT think it would take me so long to come up with a concept but at the same time, all designers know that personal projects are always hardest and I guess I forgot about that along the way! It was pretty challenging for me to come up with just 1 idea that felt true to our personalities, that fell within our budget, and that I could expand on easily throughout all the pieces. The number of combinations one can concoct is INFINITE when it comes to just paper alone (especially when you're amped on customization like I am!), and then mixing designs in with whichever combination you come up with just complexes it more. So although I never fell short on ideas for the graphic design end of it, I definitely learned a lot about paper and print design from this process. which I'm now grateful for. :)

The paper source I ended up going with was Mountain Cow, which ultimately provided the widest variety I could find at the most affordable price I could find. I made my selections from their "Envelopements" line... the punny name might have had something to do with my immediate liking of them. :) All in all, it was a pretty smooth process once I found them. I even got the entire order within 5 days of ordering- pretty impressive with all the custom-sized card tocks I ordered.

Anyway, below is the winning design! I have to say that I got the concept from a piece by Mika78 and made some changes to it to match our colors, paper dimensions and personality a little more. And yeah, I know I said before that I didn't want to use anyone else's pre-designed template but the concept of this particular one was great, so I made it our own. :)

obviously I'm a visual person, so I drew up this handy-dandy illustration to see what different colors would look like together. It totally helped as I played around with all the swatches that mountain cow had to offer.

so here's our final paper selection and color scheme Ryan and I decided on:


outer envelope:


backflap of outer envelope:


the invitation!! (will be mounted onto the tan backing, by itself on the side withOUT pocket):


directions card, will be tucked into pocket, behind response card and response envelope (the map seriously took me forever... haha):


response card:


response envelope:


so there you have it, folks.

This week I also did some research on home-office printers since it was time for me to upgrade anyway; I needed to get a fax at some point for business, so I found a really awesome deal on an HP Officejet all-in-one. Printer, scanner, fax, copier, annnnd wedding invitation printer!! :) So now that I've got it all set up and tested (ran all kinds of envelopes and custom-sized papers through it.. and thank god- it took them like a champ!), next up will be printing everything out verrry carefully and then setting up round 2 of "wedding arts and crafts time" hopefully with my mom, sisters and Patti (Ryan's mom) to bring it all together.

Hope you guys like it!!

A Plus Survival Supply... Launched!

This past week was pretty eventful and very cool. Rich Gates, President of A Plus Survival, and I crammed more hours into our work weeks the past 2 weeks than I thought were even in one to get his brand new business open.

After a total of just 4 months, A Plus Survival's brand and identity, its entire inventory, its look and feel and its fully-developed online store (with 350+ products so far!) were all formed. It has been a truly great experience working with Rich, and because he has one of the greatest, most determined work ethics I've seen, we were able to accomplish all of these things in that crazy amount of time.

Below is the Flash introduction I got to create for A Plus Survival's website (in possibly the worst quality ever, thank you Blogger... :/ haha). See the live version here. It's just a taste of what APS stands for, and is meant to show how vital it is for people around the world to get their hands on APS' products.



To see the live version as well as the rest of the A Plus Survival ID, brand, and product line, check out www.APlusSurvival.com


CONGRATULATIONS TO RICH ON THE GRAND OPENING OF A PLUS SURVIVAL!! All the best!

Ryan's race photos: a fun distraction

So Ryan had a great race this past weekend at Santa Ynez, and he gave me lots of awesome pictures to choose from to play around with in Photoshop. Below is our favorite, in a couple different variations. Ryan, I hope you like them! You look HOT!! :)


The original


Brighter colors, deeper sky...

almost same as last one, no saturation...

Switch up the composition a little!

my personal favorite

ok one more... for schitzengiggles:

My Docs Online Color Treated Logo Concepts

Welp, we're getting close to the having the new logo completed!! As you can see, my client chose the concept from last week's post with the lock and envelop merged together. And I couldn't be any happier he did. The others had potential, as I try to come up with nothing but quality concepts, but I can't help always having a favorite, and it's always awesome when a client picks the one I think is best!

Below are the 4 color concepts I've put together for them to decide from. They're pretty similar since a blue and gray color scheme was already determined, so here's what I came up with:






Next up is one more round of revisions to the chosen concept, and if all goes as scheduled, I'll be posting the final logo by the end of the week!

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. -Joseph Chilton Pearce

Next up on the freelance projects list: logo and website revamp for My Docs Online, a secure, online file transfer service.

I'm really excited to have been chosen for this project because, as you can see, I get the opportunity to completely revamp a brand and turn a great company's identity completely around. Hopefully, its new look will bring in loads of new business and also give the clients they already have an even greater sense of confidence in their services.

We're already about half-way through Phase 1 of this project, which is designing the initial black and white version of the logo. My goal with these designs is to represent the decade-old reputation of My Docs Online (Loyal customer service and secure file transfers) without getting too complex. I wanted to create something strong, something anyone can easily relate to file transfers, and something memorable. Here are the 4 promised concepts I put together this past weekend (+1 more just for personal kicks):







The chosen logo of the group will be modified and color-treated this week and should be ready for next phase by Monday!

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known." Oscar Wilde

Well, I have barely even scratched the surface of the craziness that wedding planning can be, and already, I feel an overwhelming amount of small tasks coming on that I didn't quite see coming before I started reading all the books and magazines family members gave me. BUT, my family is awesome. And I definitely won't have any trouble finding help so it's not overwhelming after all. :)

I am really excited to see what all Ryan and I can come up with since I'll be using my design skills to create all of our printed stuff and our website, which has already been a lot of fun. All we've done so far is the website (which actually took me a little more time than I thought it would, but now that it's up, I know it will save us a TON of time and money since most of the info will be posted there AND people will be able to RSVP through it, which is just sweet) and the Save-The-Date design, which is actually what I'm posting today.

The final product is going to be a magnet attached to a card. We saved about 100 bucks on doing these ourselves actually instead of ordering the things online like most people do. Instead, we bought 10 sheets of 8.5 x 11" adhesive magnets, fit 12 of the designs onto each of the 10 pages we printed out, put them onto the magnets, then cut each one giving us 120 magnets total. So it should be pretty cool and definitely unique when they're all done. ....and I might post the final deal with its card and all later. Have to figure out what it will look like first, though. haha.

I have to laugh at the process of designing this project because, completely unexpectedly, my sister/MOH and mom looked at the first draft, said they liked it a lot (and I believed them) but then gave me a funny look and said something like, "Well that's not Ryan... his hair isn't crazy." So, I added some crazy Ryan-volume and got the approval on that. :) They also said, "...and your butt looks huge." haha so after I explained to them it was supposed to be his hands on my back and not my massive booty, I just stopped talking and fixed that up too. Here's version 1 so you can see what they and I mean:



So after that, here's how the final version of our Save-The-Date designs came out (yay!!):


In case you guys are curious about how they were done, I went off of these images that I found online and then edited them in Photoshop so they looked more like us, a little artsy and just... cuter, I guess.





Hope you guys like them! Next up are the invitations. We're thinking of sticking with a "unique, personalized and just a little bit different" kind of theme (not very surprising if you know us, I'm sure..), so we'll see what I can come up with next. :)

Whether we like it or not, our legacy as designers is ugly. We’re largely responsible for fueling a culture of consumption. -— Eric Karjaluoto

The man's gotta point! :)

Anyway, a couple days ago I had to complete an animation test for a really really awesome company called Ayzenberg. Here were their specs:

Flash Banner Mock up Project Make a 300x250 banner at 150k or less. Most banners are at 50k but we gave extra room to allow you to really show off your skills.

Use the storyboard PSD as reference as the general direction for the banner, but feel free to makes changes to really bring it to life. If you have a great idea that doesn't follow the banner but is way cooler, feel free to do it. Feel free to import video or 3d or anything you want to make the coolest banner possible.

The only requirement is that everything needs to be embed in the 300x250 banner. oh yeah no sound in the banner.


My goal was to take the best of what they gave me (and they gave me a TON of great resources including the storyboard with some really great images from the game and a couple of movie clips from the actual game as well) and really focus on the strongest points of it, which I thought were the details in the characters' costume designs and facial expressions. Then I wanted to tie those images together with a clip from one of the trailers they gave me that had the ring kind of whirling around while coming at you... a pretty awesome shot. So originally, I had 3 images show -1 at a time- with some zooming effects applied. Then on top of them, I added the trimmed-down clip of the ring slowing coming through. I timed everything so that the clip of the ring started playing when the 1st image began to fade away, then ended.. all close up and in-your-face-like right after the 3 image faded out. Immediately following the end of the clip was a chunk of text I got from the storyboard that said "Play the PC Game of the Year for $9.99" which was then followed by an image with the Lord Of The Rings Online logo and a button/link underneath it to find out more info.

Butttttttttt the file size was enormous. I tried everything I could think of to get it down from over a massive 800kb to the 150 requirement. I got to the point where I thought it would be better to basically start from scratch, eliminate the trailer clip and still aim to get the same effect. So, here's what I came up with and although it doesn't have a piece of the trailer embedded, I can honestly say I think it's pretty rad:

http://www.huddydesign.com/SarahHudson_AnimationTest_02.html
NOTE: If you're using FireFox 3.0.6 the second and third images might get stuck but will function properly the 2nd time through, so just let it run... I'm working on a fix! :)

Lesson learned: I seriously need to spend more time focusing on mainting a low file size. That means planning out the design better before I start development so that I don't have to keep my fingers crossed before testing. And, I just need to flat out learn more ways to do that because that hasn't been my focus in training too much over the past 6 months.

Well, the great news about the final version is they liked it and I'll be meeting with them on Monday for an interview. So woo hoo!!! I'm so excited. I'm feelin some good vibes with this company and I'm really looking forward to meeting with them. :)

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. -George Smith Patton

Welp, I just finished putting together the new introduction to my website, Huddy Design. I got the idea for this intro from an After Effects tutorial on Layers Magazine's website, and right away I wanted to try it out myself for 2 reasons: 1, I wanted to brush up on my After Effects skills (the program I used to create this movie clip) and 2- It just looks rad! I also wanted to show off my new logo, in a way that would give it an intense, "let's get down to business," but totally unique feel, just the way I see it as.

I think my new logo design is pretty awesome and I really couldn't be happier with it. It's actually pretty weird to even be saying that because I very rarely say that about any of my work. But for some reason, I love my new logo. If I had to guess why I do, ironically, it's because about 4 out of the 5 people I've showed it to so far (all family members- so go figure) said they didn't "get it." And to that I say with an honest smirk on my face, "even better." It's different, it's out of peoples' comfort zone in terms of design, it gets people talking, and it's not sacrificing the character of my company; It's staying true to what I think Huddy Design is about and to what I want it to become- a solid resource for design and development. Yeah, I guess that's why I love it. :)

Alright, here it is:

"The last kiss is always sweet than the first."

Pretty cool little story- Jana Harvey of Jana Winery and Scott Harvey Wines, who I've worked for in the past on some cool projects, RANDOMLY found my last blog post while searching for some quotes related to love and wine for an upcoming project. Extremely luckily for me, not only did she happen to find it, she loved it and asked me to help out with the project!!

The project is an 8.5 x 11" case card or sell sheet for one of their wines, One Last Kiss. Jana liked my idea behind the holiday postcard and wants to implement it somehow on the case card, this time using the quotes she's found to make up the man and woman's profile.

Here's the first concept's rough draft:



Today I plan on playing around with the text inside the profiles... want to to see if alternating word sizes will give it a more interesting and emphasized look (I started to do this in the man's profile) and also, if more quotes or less might look better than the amount that's included in the design now. We'll see how this one comes out!

Here are the other 2 layout designs (also, both very rough drafts):




The possibly final draft, as of this morning (1/13/09):


Hope you guys like it. Whether you do or don't, you should still buy a bottle or 2 of One Last Kiss... just in time for Valentine's Day!! :) You can order it online here.