paulsutton.us » Portfolio

BuildDirect Blog Redesign

Paul Sutton — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:00:29 +0000

Another great referral from my buddy Chuck Reynolds for a web site redesign. This one sparked my interest for more than a couple reasons.

First, it gave me an opportunity to finally work with the Genesis Framework, one of the better WordPress frameworks available today, not to mention it was replacing an old, outdated-looking, difficult-to-customize, Thesis theme (as seen in the screenshot below).

Second, it also gave me a chance to experiment with WordPress Multisite. However, since the blog.BuildDirect.com site is already so well established with articles and SEO rankings, WPMS was not a great option at the time. Importing so many posts can tend to get quirky when transferring to another WordPress install and the risk was not worth it. I did, however, really enjoy getting to work with a bigger site and WordPress MS, and hope to use it for a build sometime soon in the future.

Lastly, I had the pleasure of working with a great client in Rob Woods and Build Direct. I don’t know if it is because he is Canadian or what, but I’ve never worked with a nicer guy, not to mention professional and very well informed.

This is how the site looked (with the Thesis theme) prior to the redesign.

And after the redesign.

Site link: BuildDirect Blog

Graphical Update for Logoall

Paul Sutton — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:01:49 +0000

Quick update to the ~~Logoall.com~~ site theme. The stagnant site just needed some fresh updates. I built the new theme around a Photoshop tutorial I did awhile back. I brought a little more of my style into this one, as the previous design was more ‘toned-down’, if you will. Sometimes I think I should be designing movie posters as much as I enjoy creating elaborate, intensely-graphical and fantastical scenes.

Here is a preview of the site before the update.

New design.

HDR, Photoshop and Composite Fun

Paul Sutton — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 23:04:42 +0000

I had a little down time over the weekend so I decided to have a little fun with Photoshop, again. Seems anytime I am bored, Photoshop always remedies this ‘boring’ thing.

I’ve had some old, pretty horrible digital-camera vacation photographs stored away on my hard drive. After going through them I picked out a potentially-worthy candidate. Below is the first choice, in its original state.

The point of this little project was to see if I could take an uninteresting, badly-exposed photo and make it fun. First off is to do the classic Photoshop-HDR fake process within Photoshop and then adjust the tones in PhotoMatix. After quite a bit of processing, below is the result after HDR, PhotoMatix and minor composites. For those of you not familiar with HDR Photography.

After the previous step, I showed my friend Vanessa, and having an even-more-twisted imagination than myself, she started offering suggestions on elements I could add. At this point I decided to make it a full-on-composite, or manipulation. After a day and a half of collaboration, below is the result.

Click the image to see a larger preview in my Flickr account. If your computing with some real processing power, see all the details in its full-sized-glory.

UPDATE: Decided to take a stroll down Rodeo Dr. (via Google Street View) and was lucky enough to find this house. Thought it would be fun to compare the house to the image.

It seems Google Maps no longer allows embedded StreetView previews, so
go here to see it with StreetView. It is the house on the corner of Elevado Ave. and North Rodeo Dr.

FYI, the project was done for fun, nothing at all commercial about it. Many of the elements are obviously copyright their respective owners and you may use as you’d like, aside from claiming it as your own.

Logoall Web Site

Paul Sutton — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:25:34 +0000

A lot of internal changes have taken place at my day job in the last year, one of them being a complete restructuring of the companies objective and bringing all of the services we offer into one main brand, also know as ~~Logoall Branding Agency~~.

Logoall used to be divided into 3 separate entities: WebMediaRx, whose services included general graphic design, web sites and branding services, Practice Identity, which offered pre-designed, customizable and affordable web site templates and the original LogoALL, which focused primarily on the apparel and promotions aspect of the industry.

The new ~~LogoALL.com~~ is now the hub of all our services and respectfully named LogoALL Branding Agency.

Mill Avenue Directory Brochures

Paul Sutton — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:42:57 +0000

Two months, a 100mb Adobe Illustrator file, a computer upgrade, 50,000 revisions, and a slight delay from the print press… and the Mill Avenue directory brochures are complete!
It was a battle at just about every turn; the map alone (the 100+mb Illustrator file) pushed my 32bit XP machine to its limits, resulting in an upgrade to the 64bit machine. The fact that it will be used as a tool to aid in the navigation to downtown tourists meant that it had to be passed around many sets of eyeballs to ensure accuracy and readability, hence the 50,000 updates (slight exaggeration). Not to mention that since it was a custom cut size, double gate fold meant that the guaranteed in-hands date did not apply to this order, resulting in a delay in delivery… Nonetheless, it is complete and I could not be happier.

Sertifi Web Site Design and Devlopment

Paul Sutton — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:41:16 +0000

Got a referral from a good friend of mine (Chuck Reynolds) for a company in his home town (Chicago) needing a web site. After spending the last month-in-a-half in Illustrator and Indesign, Photoshop was a welcome change. This is concept number one for a streamlined, electronic signature company looking for a “big business” appeal and a more professional look.

This is the design before I got my hands on it.

May 15, 2009. Concept #1 submitted

After submitting the first draft I received a brief email from the client and it seems as if the concept went over well with him. Who knows though, he will sit with the rest of the team tomorrow and I’ll go from there.

Additional concepts coming shortly

Madcap Branding Campaign

Paul Sutton — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:18:51 +0000

Every once in awhile a project comes up that gets my blood flowing. A new branding campaign recently came to me and if I play my cards right it could be a pretty big release. It is still hush hush so I cannot talk about the details but stay tuned and I will post the results.

Step 1 – Concepts/Ideation – proofs sent

UPDATE: – Concept Approved – color proofs sent

UPDATE: – Colors Approved – graphical standards sent

Sales Sheets

The best part of a project that gets your blood flowing is how easy the process is; when you have passion for something it aids in the ease of each step and usually the outcome is great. And though it may be a little self-serving, the idea of something I created spanning the street on a banner or gracing a storefront in neon lights tends to help the process as well.

UPDATE: - The branding campaign was so well-received we were also commissioned to brand a break-off company of this one. I will start a new post for that when I have details.

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