So after a lot of photoshop-pixel pushing and midnights spent in code grapple mode, I’ve launched Dylan Baskind.com my online CV site. I’ve gone for a “minimalism-with-a-few-frills” design approach, with an essentially two-tone colour scheme and a focus on making page elements reactive and interactive. I also went for a fixed top bar navigation, so that the various sections of the CV are all immediately and clearly accessible.

There are a few little responsive elements to the layout. The “connecting” atom on the left resizes for smaller screens, and disappears altogether for really tiny screens. Ditto for the logo in the top left corner.

The information architecture challenge I pushed and pulled with on this project was the breadth and scope of what to include in terms of achievements, skills and portfolio work. It’s a bit of a challenge deciding what content is extraneous and what is salient, when creating a site to highlight an all-rounder type of creativity. I dealt with this challenge by including almost all my creative pursuits in the site, but providing a limited selection of examples.

I’ve just finished the design and coding work for the Blue Ribbon Design site, through which I’ll be handling all web & design work from now on. An official launch will be coming in the next few weeks.

The design went through a large number of phases as the character of the site developed. At first it was too colloquial, too colourful, then it became too corporate and too monochrome, but eventually after umpteenth revisions, it settled upon (what I hope is an appealing) mid-ground between understated professionalism and a little aesthetic flare.

Technically speaking: I was considering building the site on a WordPress backend (as I have for this, 10th version of Riversend) which certainly makes things easier to update, but in the end just opted for a straight up PHP/MySQL backend. Also, working with the JQuery javascript again for all the client-side navigational functionality has been a real joy, web-technologies are just getting better and better lately, and with modern browsers starting to take standards seriously the HTML/CSS component is also becoming increasingly enjoyable to work with.

Winter People are going to be packing our bags for a lot of touring in the coming months, with a national ticket confirmed for November. But in the meantime, we’re also crossing the state borders for a show down in Melbourne next month, for which I’ve designed the artwork.

Audio maestro Peter Katis performed his magic upon the first single from Winter People’s forthcoming album, the track got added onto high rotation on Australia’s biggest national youth radio station Triple JJJ, and I designed the artwork for the single, and the launch invitation:

So its been a great time for Winter People. For me personally, the external validation has been a bit of a surprise and a welcome relief, since all of the band have invested countless man hours, blood and sweat into the recordings and the project.

I’ve just finished designing and developing a new Winter People website.