The brief for this project was to create a web app allowing the user to design their own letterman jacket. The user would be able to choose the body & trim style and the color of the jacket body, sleeves, snaps, trim etc. After completing the jacket, the user has the option to print their design along with style information, or email it to a customer rep for a quote. The app actually had a dual purpose, according to the CEO, who said that his staff would also be using it when interacting with clients.

I was fortunate to be working with a great graphic designer on this project who provided the basic layout, jacket designs and fabric swatches. I had the arduous task of creating nearly 1000 transparent gifs for the jacket panels. Lucky for me, Gimp made this a lot easier. In the application these transparent gifs were layered on top of each other to create the jacket.

The interface was done entirely as client side Javascript + CSS falling back gracefully to PHP on the server side for that 1% of users with Javascript turned off. No flash whatsoever! The ever-useful wz_tooltip script provides some nice color swatch detail on mouse over.

Now that know a little bit about how it was made, why not give it a try? Click the URL below.

Url: http://www.diamondspiritwear.com/index.php?page=jacket

Tags: php, javascript, applications, graphic design, web site

I built this site for a local antique dealer who specializes in chandeliers and tole lighting. She already had a design in mind for her logo, which I converted into a vector image.

The site was done entirely in PHP and MySQL. It has a few interesting features. The large images on the main page are not created by hand. Instead, they are pulled from the currently available inventory and created dynamically. The overlaid text, e.g. "Lamps... Explore>" is done on the fly with a PHP function, so when new content is added it will appear randomly on the front page.

The image links on the left hand navigation are also created dynamically. Since my client wanted to use a copperplate gothic font for the links, I chose to have the admin panel create a new image link automatically whenever a category is added or changed. This way the font will display correctly in every browser.

On the front end, the site includes e-commerce through paypal shopping cart, a mailing list, wish list and advanced search which allows filtering by price range and era.

For the back end I built a custom content management system to make changes a breeze. It tracks searches performed on the site recording the keywords, date the search was made, the price range and era (if selected) and number of results returned. For the auxiliary content, the CMS allows upload of images, and a means to insert them into the content using short hand tags.

Url: http://www.beauregardblue.com/

Tags: web sites, applications, graphic design, php, css, mysql, html

This was a logo for a distributor of animal health and nutrition products. The client already had a clear vision of what they wanted: "It needs a horse, a cow, a sheep, a hog, a dog, a cat and chicken..."

A lot of elements to combine in one logo! It was quite a challenge to pull off but the client was very pleased with the end result.

Url: http://www.TopChoiceLLC.com/

Tags: logos, graphic design

AHN International, a distributor of Animal Health and Nutrition products, hired me to design their logo and stationery.

Url: http://www.AHNInternational.com/

Tags: graphic design

David, the "D" in DMH & Partners, wanted me to design a logo for his consultancy. I chose this design, in part, because it's circular nature conveys a sense of being part of a network & the target in the middle suggests precision and focus. It also has a little figure-ground illusion to it. If you look closely, you can make out "dmh" formed within the negative space of the logo.

Tags: logos, graphic design