WDWerks.com Redesign Is Live
Filed under: "Whitestone Design Werks", Design, Tech
The new design for WDWerks.com is now live. It actually went live on Tuesday (as I posted last week, I was aiming for Monday), but I was still working on the portfolio pages and getting the slider jquery code to all work properly and just had a scrollable list as an effective placeholder. I was waiting to make any type of formal announcement until that part was ready.
I still have several things to finish on it. In addition to rewriting a lot of the copy (I’m always on the look out for good copywriters!), I will be implementing more jquery effects on the frontpage main image area. I am also working on new CSS for the form on the Contact Us page and will be applying the design to a WordPress theme and launching a dedicated blog for WDWerks. Currently, the blog link directs to this site but that will change soon.
Would enjoy getting anybody’s thoughts or feedback on it. And definitely let me know if you see any problems with it.
Sneak Peak of WDWerks Redesign
My design business website, Whitestone Design Werks, has been suffering from a painfully outdated design and what is even more inexcusable, an embarrassingly outdated portfolio. My cliché excuse is the classic “cobbler’s kids have no shoes” and the fact that I have had plenty of business coming in to keep me more than sufficiently busy–even website design! I haven’t been totally slack. I actually began work on the redesign last December and have sporadically kept plugging away at it and have really been in earnest the past month to finish it up. It is the classic 80% of the time is spent on the last 10% of the work.
Well, I wanted to whet the appetites of anybody who may have visited the site recently and been disappointed with the lacking portfolio that there are better things to come. So, I thought I would throw a little bone and post a screen shot of the new site as it currently stands. Now I know that someone might think that its easy to post a Photoshop comp of a non-functional site, but you’ll just have to trust me that this is the real deal. My target goal is to get this finished by this weekend and have it up and running by Monday, 11/17. It will also involve moving the site from its current hosting service to Media Temple as well as all the email server configuration, and WordPress setup, etc., so that’s a tall order, but doable.
So, without further ado…
Pixar and the Reshaping of Disney Animation
This is all old news, but thought I would still go ahead and post this as we’re anxiously awaiting the release of WALL-E on DVD on November 18. Came across an inspiring article on the Hollywood Reporter’s website chronicling John Lasseter’s career that began at Disney after attending Cal Arts with peers Brad Bird, Tim Burton and John Musker, but came to a disappointing end after he was fired for going around a manager to pitch a project. The original 1977 release of Star Wars was an inspiration to John and so it seemed a natural for him to land at George Lucas’ nascent computer animation lab, hooking up with pal Ed Catmull that he eventually sold to Steve Jobs and which most know became Pixar Studios and as we all know, was bought by Disney just last year, bringing John Lasseter back around, full circle to not only return to the fold, but to become the shepherd of the whole flock that had been wandering in the wilderness of straight-to-DVD-sequel hell.
Updated Site Look
Short post today just announcing (or at least acknowledging) that the site has had a facelift. This site since its inception has been a case study of “the cobbler’s kids have no shoes.” Well, I finally forced myself to at least do a little sprucing up around the place. There’s still an awful lot to do as I’m also working on a complete overhaul of Whitestone Design Werks too, but it will get done eventually. I just need to keep plugging away. Hope to add a Colophon page here soon.
Left Field: Apple HDTV?
To see the Apple logo emblazoned, front and center, in the living room on a 50″-ish HDTV and not just tucked away on the desk in the office or bedroom or den, but where everyone lives–what a branding opportunity. Not that Apple has ever created a product just for the sake of brand-building, but if there was ever the perfect blending of meeting a need in an arena where brands are defined like no other, creating an HDTV that wirelessly ties into the iTunes store and runs Front Row so brain-dead simple and right out of the box, this would be it. If Jason Calacanis from Valleywag is correct as reported in Nate Lanxon’s blog on CNET UK, which I originally found the link on TUAW’s Rumor Roundup) (link-love spread around), it might finally be taking shape in Cupertino and even more importantly, close to being released to the public.
