Firewheel Design 2.0
Firewheel Design 2.0
Firewheel Design 2.0
20 Dec 2004 — 6 Comments
The original Firewheel website was thrown together very quickly a little over a year ago, and it seemed that a whole lot of people enjoyed the usability and design of the site. Many thanks to all those who offered their compliments. They're always much appreciated.
Despite how much we loved the site, it did have a couple unique drawbacks stemming from its layout and structure. They included:
- No room for long, body content
- No vertical flexibility in the layout
- No dynamic content (the whole jobbie was static!)
- Lack of deep information regarding our services
- Lack of a vehicle to quickly add time sensitive content
These problems manifested themselves in obvious ways. Short term content looked awkward, as if it didn't fit the more permanent layout. Body copy had to be kept to about two paragraphs a page (a big bummer). And we receive a boatload of email requesting information that should've been posted on the site, but wasn't because of space issues.
Therefore, we set out to redesign the site in a manner that would be faithful to the original site design, but would allow for these various improvements we needed to make. We believe the new site accomplishes our goals, while still reflecting the Firewheel brand our clients and friends are used to. Obviously, there are going to be some who would prefer the old design, and I'll admit that I miss things about the old design as well—especially elements of its light, airy look.
There is now more content, and this means more information to display. Consequently, pages will seem more full. We've taken steps to make the content as clear as possible, including copy highlighting and inline Q&A page sections, a la 37signals. Props to them for these great concepts.
I'll venture to say that the site is not final. There are a few rough edges we're aware of, and several improvements we'd like to make. Most, if not all, pages should validate however.
I do hope you enjoy the site, and would love to hear your thoughts.
Robert Stulle says
You did a great job on redesigning firewheel. Creating a site that looks great is one thing but making it work like the new firewheel site does is something else. I am impressed and inspired. Your attention to detail is awesome.
Jimmy Nordlund says
Congratulations on the new design! It looks fantastic. I'm particularly fond of the color scheme, somehow you made those daring, strong colors work really well together. Impressive work indeed.
Meredith says
I am absolutely in love with the colors (and not to mention, the freaking outstanding typography). It's quite possibly the most fantastic portfolio site I've seen in some time! I get so tired of the "please read my blog first" type of personal/portfolio sites, but this looks so very professional. And I also love the subtle way you weave the firewheel logo throughout the piece, without using it as the standards permalink marker or anything. It looks like the extra work you guys put in to it really paid off. Very nice.
(And of course, your interface icons & design have always amazed me anyway...)
Randy Peterman says
A side note that you might consider making the images under "Featured Projects" links to the project info pages. It's not a huge thing but that's what I did immediately, and then my mouse cursor didn't change, neither did the URL of the browser. So I clicked the text below. Looks good though!
Rene Grassegger says
Hi,
I really love the design. Its so fresh and energetic. And your icons are still great(but you know that already, I think ;-) ).
For me the text navigation in the black bar, could grow a little bit.
$0.02
Rene
Joshwa says
Thanks for the comments (and kind words) everyone. Yes, we're aware that the nav links are a little dark on Windows PCs, and we're working on getting them to show up a little better. The help is definitely appreciated!