Ryan Warnberg and Michelle McSwain are awesome folks. I thoroughly enjoy every chance I get to design for them. This time around I got to work on a WordPress theme based on the logo and aesthetic we landed on last year. I plan to refine the WordPress theme over the coming months and make it more unique to them. I am a big fan of minimalism, bold color, big fonts and clean structure.
Some key ideas
The body background is a transparent PNG with a halftone dot pattern repeated from MRI’s logo. The actual header div utilizes another dot pattern. When the two are combined it creates a completely different effect than either would solely, on their own. This is a very minor design touch but I plan on making this idea a fundamental design element throughout MRI’s branding. It embodies everything about light painting in overlapping colors.
Bright, bold colors
The theme is very minimal but it relies on bold color to re-enforce your eye’s focus.
CSS 3 and Internet Explorer
I do not expect anyone using IE to see the website as intended. This is similar to a director’s cut of a film. I will no longer go out of my way to dumb-down websites I design, just for IE — at least when I can avoid it, anyway. I chose to utilize border-radius (rounded corners) and text-shadow via CSS 3 and only folks using current web standards-compliant browsers will see the website as intended. IE users will not see rounded corners, drop-shadows or text shadows. Internet Explorer 9 is supposed to support CSS 3, finally, we’ll see. Microsoft, please stop making your own browser — use it in your operating system all you want but stop allowing people to use your shitty browser. Please, focus your energy and resources on making a semi-decent operating system.
Future ideas for expansion and refinement
- Play with sidebar widgets — how to display them in a not-so-default manner
- The heavily desired “where’s the beef” footer — more interesting footer business
- Creative ways to present post-sharing/social media badges
- Implement some @font references for headers/typography
- Strive to remember that simplicity is usually the best route to take
Click image to visit the new website.
I want to thank Michelle and Ryan for being awesome and letting me use their website as a design playground. I love you guys. This post is like, 4 months past due, but whatever. Better late than never.
Thanks for reading and let me know what you think.
