About Pixelcolor

Pixelcolor

Pixelcolor was the name I used to create my final project for the Internet Design and Technology Certificate, in part because I had learned about pixels and I like color, which should be apparent. For a while it held my resume and portfolio serving as the site where I would send an employer, although I never quite got that far having gone to work for EFC9 and then having some Dr. restrictions added in to the mix. Whatever domains I had I let go thinking they were of little use including the site itself.

I really needed something I could practice with, which meant working on my personal site, which has grown and morphed over the years into the relative calm that now exists. But then I thought about other things more as in if I had a business or if I wanted a name under which to group my designs, I still liked pixelcolor, and so again I bought whatever available domains pertinent to my goals for pixelcolor, and then came the difficult part of figuring out what to do with the site. Some aspects were relevant, some less so as originally conceived. It was also during this time I realized that I had some projects that I would like to see happen, going so far as to use my islavista.ws domain within the content of my personal site to post this idea or just to ramble on.

Upon rebuilding my site after buying an online product that would organize and remove the tedium of posting slide shows and other images onto my site, which allows for me to concentrate on images or writing without trying to manage both simultaneously, that it became clear to me what step was necessary to finalize the placement of the various elements.

It occurred to me that generally I am in the process of trying to promote various ideas which usually require concrete proposals, that posting these to my personal site made little sense, whereas on pixelcolor they blend in perfectly with the original parts as such, resume, and portfolio, and finally perhaps that part of the site known as projects could in fact be a statement, unlike a resume, but what's happening at any given time along with other activities I wish to accomplish. Thus could be a place of the past, present and potential future activities under the guise of resume, projects and portfolio.

My philosophy is basically to keep it simple and try and make it different and unique. One of the joys of my sites are the few restraints on doing whatever I want to do and they will change along with the internet as it changes. So drop in, click around and enjoy the view.

I of course work with non-profits and hope to create some basic designs that may be different, such as the wellnetwork.org design or even this design. I also can work now more with other people's portfolios, although at this point in time I didn't use it for mine. With artistic sites, I believe with the various on line galleries such as that with the new updated iLife from Apple or godaddy.com's gallery, opens the way for artists to more easily choose between one of three ways to go about site design. On line gallery with minimal html pages; using your own art to create your own web site design that showcases it, which might include a gallery and finally the most expensive a data based designed gallery, where you might store all your images and be able to call them up in various ways, or even using it to create unique slide show befitting your materials.

I can provide and will work for non-profits on a fixed price basis, which is best for small sites that would just like to jazz it up some to the more formal process of actually starting out with the story board and working forward with final say by stakeholders at important benchmarks along the way. Generally the most important questions to ask is how much information do I have for a site; how often do I want it updated; do I want to update or have it managed by the web designer or someone else. My price range is from $50 an hour to $100 an hour depending on how many of the basic aspects involved do I need to either create, design and then write the necessary code.

In other words, generally there are three parts to simple web site design, if it really can be called simple and that is the initial art work and graphic design elements required; then transferring this 'mind's eye' vision of a site to the actual template and then finally actually writing the code and completing the necessary requirements required to implement your site requirements.

Generally speaking the more of these that fall onto my creativity well or the more the need for revisions due to change orders, hence more coding or art creation required to implement the design idea, the more easily costs can spiral.

Fear not however, if you had a site with the approximate level of data as in wellnetwork.org's design, and you like the basic layout, you had images for the front door, and your requirements or taste called for different colors, then the wellnetwork.org design could be had for somewhere between one and two thousand dollars, depending on how many change orders are required.

I would like to explain two concepts one that I'm introducing that I don't believe exist to date, the first being, a site with a front door design, instead of a home page. This design basically doesn't have a 'home' page as you might in the past unless you have information that makes having a home page worthwhile. Otherwise, then I use it as a front door to the rest of the site. Once a person makes it to the front door and enters, small or even medium sized sites can be designed to be internally consistent, hence no need to return to the front door.

And, then it is important to keep your design on track through the implementation process, to ensure that your price or costs remain in the realm anticipated. If diligence is maintained then voilá, a web site. Like any experience of something good, open and enjoy.