Design samples

This page contains links to various work samples that you can either view on line and/or download for later reference.

Together® ControlCenter™ 6.0 Splash Screen

The team was facing a tight release deadline. The graphics designer that marketing had hired to create a new look for splash and installer screens for this major release had a great deal of experience designing printed product brochures, but, sadly, no experience in the software industry or on-line graphics. The design delivered simply didn't cut it, the designer could not understand why, and there was no time to go round-and-round about it.

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Over the next weekend I created a new design based on some graphics we had on hand from the Web site. I submitted this splash screen and a set ot six installer screens to product management the following Monday. The design was immediately accepted by executive management. It was used in the 6.0 release and remained in the product until the company was acquired by Borland.

In this case, my industry experience compensated for my comparatively meager graphics skills. More importantly, an obstacle was overcome and product shipped on time.

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Tutorial: Practical UML for Developers

I was not the original designer/author of this HTML-based tutorial. Although I did make minor editorial changes, the main goals of this project were:

• Develop a new and more readable page design for use with all Together product tutorials
• Redesign the information structure into smaller topics with smaller graphics for faster loading.
• Replace in-line formatting mark-up with a new CSS design, and make the HTML code and CSS compliant with W3C standards.
• Refactor the overly-complex JavaScript code (generated by a tool) for the interactive quizzes into something more appropriate to the simple nature of the project.
• Change the branding and copyrights from TogetherSoft to Borland.

  Download Zipped HTML

Website lynnhiltonmusic.com

This was a serendipitous but fun little design project. Lynn Hilton is a jazz pianist and vocalist who performs mostly internationally. I met her in St. Petersburg and discovered that, while she had a website, it was working more against her than for her.

The small brochure site was being hosted on some dog-slow server which wouldn't serve the all-important MP3 audio clips for potential clients. Even when moved to a faster host, the HTML was loaded with old-fashioned bandwidth-eating junk markup, the CSS and HTML did not validate to current Web standards, the photo file sizes were not optimal, and there was completely unnecessary Javascript further slowing things down. Worse yet, when you visited the site you couldn't really understand its raison d'être.

My job was to keep the same banner graphics and overall visual look and feel while creating a new page design that would reduce file size and load times. I achieved this using XHTML with CSS, and a transitional layout scheme (imo, the world is still not quite ready for pure CSS layout.) I also created a basic architecture and revised and created content that fit it.

You can check out the site at www.lynnhiltonmusic.com.

Thirdline International Web site

Actually, you've been looking at an example of my work all along: this site! I designed everything from the graphics to the style sheets that lay out the pages. Yes, you can find slicker graphics and cooler interactive features elsewhere. But the purpose of this site is to deliver information... enough that prospective clients can decide it they are interested in Thirdline as a provider of technical communications services. If you have suggestions for improvements, please get in touch!

NOTE: I do not claim to be a graphics designer! That's a highly specialized field and the skills of a specialist may be needed for your project. If so, I will recommend you go that route, and I can probably help you find someone. However, I may be able to handle some projects' graphics needs to your satisfaction.

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