I’ve been wanting to spotlight the website redesign project I recently completed for Sunset Entertainment Group – so here goes! In August, the redesigned site launched with a slick and may-I-dare-say sex look. Sunset artists, producers and songwriters are working with some of the biggest names in the business, so this site had to look good! The site is full of media and adds some flash with the ever-rotating image galleries.

The new Sunset Entertainment Group site is created and managed entirely through WordPress. I love working with WordPress which for those of you who don’t know is a free web/blogging software with hundreds of pre-designed themes. I love the ability it allows me as a designer to control the look and feel of a site while giving my clients access to making general updates. And this is true for the Sunset site. Here is a screenshot of how the Sunset site would look without my custom design:

But instead, you see this:

For the clients and artists pages on the Sunset site, I created a custom accordion-style menu system to for viewing the individual clients/artists. For web/tech geeks, I utilized the basic Jquery Accordion widget for the Sunset site. The following image shows a standard client listing NOT integrated into the accordion-style menu.

The image below shows the same client listing integrated into the custom viewing system:

So when it was all wrapped up, the new Sunset Entertainment Group website can be easily updated and managed without sacrificing design details or functionality! Want to give WordPress a try? Check out WordPress.com which allows you to utilize the open-source system on THEIR servers. You can have a blog/site up and running in minutes. And did I mention it’s free?

Around this time last year I began working with Gabe Fredericks of Philip Gabriel Photography. Gabe and I are old pals from college – we graduated together from the Photography department of Tyler School of Art. Gabe has always had such a great personality, so it was no surprise to me to find out he had taken his love for creating beautiful images and turned this passion into a wildly successful wedding and portrait photography studio. When Gabe was on the hunt to redesign the portfolio website for Philip Gabriel Photography, I jumped at the chance to work with him!

The new branding above incorporates some elements from the original Philip Gabriel Photography logo but with a more relaxed chic approach and warm, fresh colors. The “Philip” in Philip Gabriel Photography represents Gabe’s Dad who passed on his love for photography and technical prowess to Gabe!

The new design for the Philip Gabriel Photography portfolio site had to feel effortless and function flawlessly. My favorite aspect to the site is how the galleries function – at first offering the viewer just a glimpse of these beautiful moments and then opening up into a story of images.

Gabe and I worked closely on creating a new color palette that complimented the tone of the images.

This was such a fun project for me on so many levels. Not only did I get to work with a former classmate and friend, but I was able to look at these beautiful pictures all day long!

I also redesigned the Philip Gabriel Photography Blog which is where the full stories really get told. Customizing this basic WordPress blog to feel just as elegant as the main portfolio website was no easy task! What was most important is that the images be integrated into an equally compelling visual structure that Gabe could easily update.

What a fun project! And keep a look out for the new Portrait Photography section to launch soon on Philip Gabriel Photography.