Portfolio: Selected Projects
CSS Zen Garden Submissions
The CSS Zen Garden is a “must visit” for all web professionals, aspiring and seasoned alike. It is a collaborative gallery of hundreds of international designers, all in the name of advancing the state of web design. And it is a great source of inspiration. So far I have created four submissions (yes, it’s a bit of an addiction of mine).
1. Moss:
I was very excited to finally submit my own entry to the CSS Zen Garden. To me it was a symbol of finally having gotten over the learning-curve hump of this new-fangled web-standards business.
It was so difficult to decide on a direction for this design because there was no client … I could do whatever I wanted! Endless possibilities can sometimes be a bit daunting. ;~)
I decided to express more of my true Art School Personality, something that I rarely get to do in my paying gigs. I had a lot of fun working on this funky monochromatic design.
And then I was hooked …
2. Faded Flowers:
After doing the first one I just couldn’t help myself … I had to do another Zen Garden entry. It was so much easier the second time around!
Since my first design was so "artsy," I wanted to do something that would showcase my "clean cut" side a bit. The inspiration behind this design was the idea of a magazine layout.
3. Interlocking:
With this design I really wanted to challenge myself with the layout. The "interlocking" aspect of it was certainly difficult to produce while being constrained by the xhtml that was given me and not being able to alter it! (Ooooh … my Kingdome for some wrapping divs!)
But that’s what’s so great about working on a piece for the Garden … it really pushes your css problem-solving abilities and I definitely learn something new every time.
4. Elegance in Simplicity:
Because I have already made three other submissions, coding a Zen Garden page has become somewhat old hat to me now, so I wanted to really challenge myself on the design side of things. I wanted to do something different. Since I often depend quite heavily on imagery and color, I thought I would see what I could come up with using minimal color and imagery and relying more heavily on layout, font choices, and white space.
I have written an article, Anatomy of a Design, about my process in developing this layout.
5. Saturated Glow:
After completing Rose Edge LLC, while the client and I were both extremely pleased with how it turned out, I knew it wasn’t exactly what I originally had in mind. Originally the design was light text on a dark background with more contrast and, dare I say it, edge to it. It was pretty cool, not quite appropriate for the project it was designed for, which needed a softer feel, with a more calming color pallet which suited the client and her work better.
So the design was modified, the client was happy with it, and I was too. However it bummed me out that my original design was not going to see the light of day, because I was still pretty into it! I asked the client if i t would be OK to use the original design to base a Zen Garden entry off of and she gave me the thumbs up to go ahead. Isn’t that fantastic of her?! Thanks, Kristin!
