Kempwire.com » Portfolio

Unfinished Sites

Jonathan Kemp — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:37:34 +0000

Now that I am leaving, I was trying to count how many sites I have worked on recently that have not launched yet. There are four.

WDVX
Roane Alliance, Chamber and Tourism
Edgewater Hotel
Structural Strategies

These are sites that I completed builds for that are stalled for one reason or another. I am watching to see when they launch. Once they do I’ll add them to my work page here. I doubt that any of these will launch before the end of the year. We’ll see what happens next year.

Update – 1/23/08: It turns out, WDVX launched this month.

Recent Site Launches – 10/5/07

Jonathan Kemp — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:51:41 +0000

We have launched several sites this year that I worked on. I didn’t design these, but I built all of them. I haven’t been linking to any of them or added any of them to my portfolio yet. I’m sure will get around to updating my portfolio again soon. Hopefully. Anyway, check them out and leave feedback if you are so inclined.

Update: I moved this to a permanent page here. You can now go there to see the running list of site launches.

One Page Portfolio

Jonathan Kemp — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 03:24:56 +0000

I worked on a one page portfolio this weekend. Here it is.

http://designbycss.com/portfolio/

Let me know what you think. Also, here is a directory of one page portfolios. I found lots of inspiration there.

Singer Web Site Launched!

Jonathan Kemp — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 03:24:18 +0000

I didn’t think this day would ever come. I started on the build of this site in November 2006. But, the waiting is finally over. Singerco.com is finally launched today. Click the thumbnail below for a screenshot.

From a design standpoint, I guess I am proud of this web site. From a code standpoint, I am disappointed. I was extremely proud of my original build. But the site was a redesign and a rush job. It was merged with existing programming, and in the end, the designer, plus at least three different programmers all had their hands in it. It also had to be merged with existing content, which was all in tables.

The result is a mish-mash of code that does not validate and barely resembles the original build. It looks good though and will most likely be an award winning design. In the end that is all most people care about. And they should. The client is happy, and we win shiny plaques to display in our office to show off to clients.

The code does matter though to people that do what I do everyday. And I can’t help but wish we had more time to build it and program it the right way. You can check out the new Singer web site right here.

Simulating Position Fixed in IE

Jonathan Kemp — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 15:42:33 +0000

Good CSS designers know that one of the faults of Internet Explorer 6 is that it doesn’t recognize the CSS property position: fixed. This is a CSS property which allows one element on a page to remain stationary while the other element scrolls, resembling frames in a browser.

Our company launched a web site for Ty Pennington last fall. For this site, the footer, along with the transparent logo at the bottom of every page, not only needed to be stationary, but also always needed to align at the bottom of the page no matter how long the content or the browser window. This is a desgin challenge for any CSS designer.

Luckily, I found a kickass CSS hack that not only allowed me to simulate position: fixed in IE but also solve the other problem I had by always keeping the footer at the bottom of the page. It worked perfectly, but it currently breaks in IE 7. It may be fixable, but I haven’t taken a look at it yet to try and fix it.

Ty Pennington is a site we are really proud of. It uses lots of other tricks with Javascript and CSS to create a beautiful, branded work of art. So go on over there to see how it was done. Also click on the example above and bookmark it so you can do this in the future.

Celebrity Choppers

Jonathan Kemp — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 05:27:43 +0000

We have been working on a site for Celebrity Choppers for the past month, which launched yesterday. Celebrity Choppers is currently a TV show without a home. The synopsis is a group of guys from Tennessee build custom chopper motorcycles for celebrities.

I am really excited about this site and really enjoyed working on it. It was designed by our Creative Director, Chris Kosman. I did all the CSS layout and design. You can view it at http://www.celebritychoppers.net/. This is a great looking site which we are really proud of.

Smoky Mountain Convention & Visitors Bureau

Jonathan Kemp — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 05:20:27 +0000

This was a redesign of the Smoky Mountain Convention & Visitors Bureau that was launched right before Christmas. It was a lot of fun working on this site.

The design of the site came from a local advertising agency that Mediapulse sometimes partners with. The interesting part of the site is in the Flash. The Flash parts, including all of the creature animation, was done by our Art Director, Chris Kosman.

The site was built by me, using standards compliant CSS. All of the Flash uses Unobtrusive Flash Objects (UFO) so that it will validate. The site also makes use of sIFR, which I am starting to use more of, for the headers.

Anyway, we are really excited about this site! Check it out at http://www.smokymountains.org/.