Chapter Two ~ Serenity
For the past, oh 7 years or so, I have been working on redesign my site. Ever since I completed it for the first time, a redesign of it has been on my mind (I'm never happy with my own work). When I finally set out to do it this time, I decided that I'd take the pressure off myself a bit and not have any delusions about an FWA, or feel the need to try and blow everyone away with my design and technical prowess (as if). I wanted something that would be simple and clean with no caffeine. Something that would be easier to maintain and easier to redesign next time (hopefully that wont take another 7 years). What I ended up building accomplishes that I think.
The site is built using a full Flash front-end (duh), but uses remoting (AMFPHP) to connect to a mySQL database that houses the tables of data. The blog data is pulled into Flash from the wordpress DB, and the same project content is used in the client management area I wrote to allow clients to access their current and past projects in a secure area (still need to re-skin that). This allowed me to keep all data separated from the presentation layer, hopefully minimizing the amount of effort it takes to add/edit/remove projects/clients. And hopefully keep me from having to go through that exercise when the time comes to update the design again. It also allowed me to create a simple static version of the site utilizing the same data. I also took this time to update the blog theme (as you can see) as well as my custom error pages. I created a custom audio track to set the mood and added a dash of AfterEffects... just cause 
I call this version Serenity for several different reasons. The main reason however, is that with this design I was removing all of the pressure from myself to impress/show off/ win awards/{insert self serving buzzword here}. This design was truly for me. A design that fits the way I like to do things, and stays true to the quote by Leonardo da Vinci that I use in my emails, on my business cards and in daily design discussions - "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication".
I hope you enjoy it.
You can see the different versions of the site and pages below:
Flash Version
Static / SEO version
404 Error Page
401 Error Page
View my LinkedIn profile
Become a fan on Facebook
June 8th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Serenity looks sweeet! I enjoy the “pixie dust” explosion on the buttons. I supposed you did that in After Effects?
June 8th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Wow. I love the new site! I love the red and the animations for everything… Very slick and professional!
June 9th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
@Bobby – thanks for the kind words. Yes the rollovers on the top menu buttons, and the older/newer buttons were done in After Effects using the Trapcode Particular plug-in (Trapcode makes the best plug-ins for AE, hands down IMHO). Although I’ll probably just end up looking like a trend whore real soon with all these particle generators for Flash on the horizon, oh well.
@Jeff – thank you as well for the feedback. No reds were used, all nice shades of Orange
Thanks again for the comments.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:50 am
Nice site dude… I tried looking at your chops gallery but your flash version check fails when I’m using Firefox & Flash 9 player…
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Thanks Suhis, sorry about the Flash detection I moved my SWFObject script and forgot to update the page. The Chops gallery should work now
July 12th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Very impressive, it’s cool to see the two front ends and know they’re both using the same set of data. Nice job.
August 7th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Dave, the site is simply outstanding! You’ve always been a model for me to learn from, and this new design puts yourself right up there with the best.