Hello everyone! Thank you for your patience as I dropped off the face of the planet for a week. 🙂 I have been busier than a one-armed fiddle player over here trying to juggle all my normal projects, AND… launching the biggest brand redesign & website we’ve worked on to date.A Practical Wedding is a website that encompasses so many awesome things. Basically they are a resource for laid-back, feminist weddings and supporters of egalitarian relationships of all kinds… even the non-married kind. I have been reading this blog for a long time, and the content consistently moves me. These women are writing about really important things, and it was truly an honor to help re-brand them and collaborate with them on the new websiteHere’s the thing about a site like APW. The content of this site is always relevant. It’s not like fashion or news where yesterday’s post is old hat by the end of the day. They have content that dates back to the beginning of the site’s inception that is as important and poignant now as it was then. Not only that, the community on this blog is like a giant extended family. The comment threads are some of the best, funniest, most insightful things I’ve ever read — and in this day & age of anonymous comment bullies, I think that says something about the kind of website this is, and the people who are active participants in this discussion.
I say all that to say, this website is a perfect example of a content driven blog, and the design that I’ve done here was created specifically to promote and frame everything contained within. Tim & I worked closely with Meg & Maddie and tried to create a well organized and thoughtful user experience for the audience. I feel like, even though the site is in Beta, we really were able to create some great tools and methods by which to get at all the amazing content in this site.
The coming weeks will have lots of activity as we roll out new features, make the site responsive (HUGE job for Tim!), and refine the user experience. Please, go over and dig in. I want to know what you guys think of the site & the experience.
Shout-Outs: A big thank you to G. Wink for help creating brand guidelines and files. I also want to thank Steph Shilling, my design assistant, for helping me take these concepts from sitemap to real life. It was the BIGGEST sitemap we’ve ever tackled –as in, you could wallpaper your bathroom with the flowcharts we created — and she helped me get it all done, and backed me up on so many things during production. Most of all to TIM. I’m really glad I married a genius developer who doesn’t mind working on my glitter encrusted designs. 😀 He took this thing from design concept to real life and worked harder than any of us. Thanks honey!
IN OTHER NEWS…
I have 7 new paintings to add to the shop! I will be photographing them and putting them up this week — PROMISE. Since I’m not doing any shows this holiday season, I’ve decided to skip printing my calendars in-house, but I will be posting lots of new prints to Society 6 so you can still scoop up some new works as stocking stuffers.