Their current member firms produce most of the student learning resources currently used in Canadian schools and although they produce learning resources in a variety of media formats they were concerned that the association may be perceived in education circles as an organization whose members are principally focused on print text book production at a time when there is an increased interest in digital learning resources.

What CERC Wanted

CERC wanted to updated their image with a new logo and branding as well as revamp their existing website so it could be used as an effective communication vehicle to easily publish content to project a more accurate and up-to-date image of what the CERC member firms do.

Digital Deceptions teamed up with Lesley Kelz of Squidpress who was the lead on the project and also from Durham Region, Lesley is a graphic designer with a fair amount of design experience in the publishing industry. She was responsible for the logo and branding and my job was the web design and development.

Lesley did a great job on the logo and her choice of colours were dead on. Also I have to say when the logo was finalized she sent me the most detailed and easy to follow brand guide I have ever seen and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I now incorporate a similar type of guide myself.

Work Better in a Team Environment

I had never worked with Lesley prior to this job and I hope we get the chance to team again on future projects, it was really great working with her.

I don’t often get to work on projects with other graphic designers and I definitely like it much better when you have a set of parameters you have to work within rather than having to think, plan and design at every pixel yourself.

It is easy to get creative block, repetitive or even burnt out when wearing so many hats on a project so it nice not to have to think about as much and use the extra brain power to focus solely on your part.

For CERC’s website I used none other than WordPress, they needed an accessible content management system that was flexible, secure and easy to use so WordPress was a no brainer.

The website is accessible and W3C standard compliant. I made a simple clean design because this is going to be a very content driven website and you can’t have the user getting lost within the design. I used the great colour scheme Lesley chose as well as some dark and light greys and some carefully chosen stock photography.

All in all it was a great project and I enjoyed working with Lesly Kelz as well as the team at the Canadian Educational Resource Counsel.

Visit the website

Well the Big Catch Fish and Chips Family Restaurant website is complete and was launched this afternoon. The web site was the last part of the huge project which included logo and full branding, 10 30 x 40” poster, vinyl wall netting installations, takeout menus, a 13 x 5 foot menu board and storefront signage.

This is only the second time I have had the pleasure to design a full package project from the ground up and I have to say as challenging as it was I really enjoyed it. Anyways on to the Big Catch web page.

I would like to start off by saying that once again I have programmed and coded a web site which validates with strict compliance. It has been tested in all browsers even that old piece of crap ie6 and works flawlessly across the board.

When I first started researching fish and chip shop websites all over the world I quickly noticed that most never had a site and those that did never really put any effort in to them. So right off the bat I not only wanted to outdo all the competition but I wanted to annihilate them all.

I began drawing some mockups and decided that this website was going to have a lot of character and I also wanted to have an animation of the sea. After playing around and figuring out how I was going to execute the effect the rest of the site kind of just fell into place.

The web site has a few other little interesting tidbits and graphics that I will leave as a surprise. Not only did I have a blast working on the website but I really enjoyed the whole project, it challenged me and allowed me to use a lot of skills that I haven’t used in a while and it taught me a few new ones.

Visit the website

Just completed a web project for the ElectroGuy which launched today. The ElectroGuy is a technology specialist who provides the installation and service for many different technologies such as security, computers, internet, satellites and electronics.

The site was designed in Photoshop then sliced up and programmed with some XHTML 1.0 strict compliant code. The main idea behind the side is to show the audience that the ElectroGuy services all sorts of clients from the city to the country and everyone in between.

To get this point across we literally created a landscape graphic of the big city (in this case Toronto) morphing into the countryside. A silhouette of a satellite dish pointing to the company logo was added to give the eye a more interesting course to follow.

And speaking of the company logo it wouldn’t be much of a Digital Deceptions creation if I didn’t add a little animation to really give it a personality. When you mouse over the ElectroGuy logo it electrifies and right below that I have placed a wind turbine which produces electricity (are you getting the theme here?) giving the landscape graphic that element of the third dimension.

All in all this project isn’t the most complex I’ve worked on but just like the ElectroGuy I to work with clients of many different sizes and I’m able to provide them with solutions to their problems no matter how large or small they are.

Visit the website

With this in mind the website was created in a way that it could easily grow with Comma into any direction that they want to take their business to.

The site was build using PHP and some of the highlights include a logo rollover and Toronto city skyline animation as well as a secure email system allowing candidates to attach their resumes right from the site.

Visit their website

Since they are in the Home building business I thought a wood texture was the way to go which they really liked the idea of. We stayed away from Flash and animations to get a better ranking in search engines so the website was constructed using PHP.

One of the big highlights of the site is the Virtual Tour, we used QuickTime Virtual Reality (OTVR) and they turned out beautifully. Another media element on the site is their TV commercial.

Once again the client was really happy with the project and I look forward to working for them many times again in the future.

The client showed me a couple of websites from his local competitors and we took a look at what they did right and where they went wrong, what the client was really looking to do was make his competition’s websites look dated and leave them in the dust.

The website is Flash based due to some decent sized animations; some highlights of the site include an XML image gallery, custom map and Tint Simulator. Unlike the client’s competition he was very pleased with the gritty and aggressive look and feel of his new site.

Visit their website

Once again I was very fortunate to work with someone who believed in me and let me put a lot of creativity into the project. The website has gotten a lot of attention because of how unique it looks and how easily childlike it is to use.

From the start it was going to be quite interactive so flash was chosen has the medium, it has an XML image gallery and a neat little chalkboard navigation system as well as a few other little hidden animations.

Visit website.

First off they are an American business where I usually do work for Canadian companies; they wanted a very clean and corporate almost minimal look which is usually the opposite of what I strive for.

It was very difficult not to throw some bells and whistles into this project but it was against the client’s wishes and I’m always up for a challenge. Sometimes you have to come out of my comfort zone every so often; I think it makes you a better designer by using skills you otherwise my not normally use.

His shop has a really friendly laid back atmosphere to it and I thought we really needed to get that across on his website. You could easily see the staff enjoyed each other’s company because they were always having fun and joking around so I think that had to show in the site as well.

Donn’s only requirements were that he wanted random styling tips to load on each page, a music player and I had to incorporate a certain time piece into the design, he is a obsessed with watches…lol.

I managed to include all his wishes into the design and was even able to program the watch to work and display the actual time on the users screen. He was really happy with the final product and I enjoyed working with him and his staff at Dubé Hair.

Their website is Flash and XML based so the image galleries are easily updated. Each page has an animated transition and the 3D logo has an into and outro animation when touched which was created using Aftereffects.