Halfslide Design Blog - Austin, Texas Website Design » Branding http://www.halfslide.com/blog Austin, Texas Website Design Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:52:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Halfslide Design Website Remodel http://www.halfslide.com/blog/2009/08/21/halfslide-design-website-remodel/ http://www.halfslide.com/blog/2009/08/21/halfslide-design-website-remodel/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:59:52 +0000 peter http://www.halfslide.com/blog/?p=24 Within the last two weeks, I’ve debuted the new look and feel of the Halfslide Design site. This is something that I’ve been wanting (and needing) to do for probably over two years now but haven’t had the time due to responsibilities to clients and my full-time job. A few of the reasons I needed to overhaul the layout was:

  1. New Brand and Logo.  It’s sad to say, but the old site was brandless.  The logo consisted of a cool background and a cool font, but not much more than that.  I’ve had an idea of the logo I’ve wanted to use for Halfslide for years now but never sat down to take the time to actually implement it.  The new site now is using that logo that I had in mind and I’m much happier with it.
  2. Better CSS-based design.  The old site was built using a mish-mash of tables and divs with some styles actually declared on the elements themselves.  It really was not the ideal layout and became a bear to maintain even though it was a small site.  The new layout is much better in terms of table-less design and I believe it will be much easier to maintain over time.
  3. Better browser compatibility.  Other than IE6, all the browsers that I’ve tested my site on render a consistent look and feel.  I have no desire to make this site work with IE6 and won’t waste my time on a browser that’s almost 10 years old now.  I know there are several rendering issues with IE6 including the transparent PNGs and I refuse to fix them.
  4. jQuery only.  The old site used a combination of several javascript frameworks, each doing their own part on the site.  Scriptaculous for effects, prototype for utility, lightbox for image popups, and ExtJS for a few small components.  The current site utilizes jQuery to do everything and it makes it much easier to maintain all the scripts.

Other than the items above, I think the new site brings a much more provides a much more pleasing aesthetic.  It’s one of the few sites I’ve done in the last few years that I was completely happy with and excited about.  I was glad to be able to incorporate client testimonials in a better way and want to thank all of my clients for their excellent feedback and for allowing me to use their quotes on the site.  I’m sure that I’m not done tinkering with the site, but this will be the last overhaul probably for a few years.  Once HTML 5 is out, I’m sure I’ll want to take full advantage of those new features.

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