My Geek Weekend
May. 1st, 2006 10:18 amThe only way to get good at something is to practice. This week, I'm afraid I didn't do any writing at all because my efforts have been back into the graphic design part of my brain. My efforts have been targeted at one of Omaha's projects, supporting the Washington State 33rd District Democrats, and now you too can see the fruit of my efforts: Karen Keiser 2006.
Whee. My first client website in nine years. Pretty nice, too, eh?
Campaign website design sucks the way campaign commercials suck. Have you ever noticed just how un-slick campaign ads are? Campaign websites are the same way, and there's one and only one reason for this: you've got a three-color palette. Red, white, and blue. That's it, unless you count black for the text. I'm especially grateful that Senator Keiser gave me the freedom to give the splash some damn color with that Van Gogh; politics could use something better than the stultifying repetition of primary red, white, and blue.
It's nice to keep my hand in: I learned a little PHP along the way, and got to use some of my l33t CSS skilz that I've been using in my professional life. (Yes, I know enough PHP to check the taint on all my variables; I just wish I could have written the URLs RESTfully).
And I have to tell the client, "This is a campaign site" and keep in mind that the primary goal of the campaign site at this time is (1) to attract and retain volunteers, and (2) to be a countering web-presence to her competitor. Eventually, as election day draws nearer, the website has to slip over to (1) attracting volunteers and (2) convince people who haven't volunteered to come out and vote, preferably for the candidate, but vote, dammit.
Whee. My first client website in nine years. Pretty nice, too, eh?
Campaign website design sucks the way campaign commercials suck. Have you ever noticed just how un-slick campaign ads are? Campaign websites are the same way, and there's one and only one reason for this: you've got a three-color palette. Red, white, and blue. That's it, unless you count black for the text. I'm especially grateful that Senator Keiser gave me the freedom to give the splash some damn color with that Van Gogh; politics could use something better than the stultifying repetition of primary red, white, and blue.
It's nice to keep my hand in: I learned a little PHP along the way, and got to use some of my l33t CSS skilz that I've been using in my professional life. (Yes, I know enough PHP to check the taint on all my variables; I just wish I could have written the URLs RESTfully).
And I have to tell the client, "This is a campaign site" and keep in mind that the primary goal of the campaign site at this time is (1) to attract and retain volunteers, and (2) to be a countering web-presence to her competitor. Eventually, as election day draws nearer, the website has to slip over to (1) attracting volunteers and (2) convince people who haven't volunteered to come out and vote, preferably for the candidate, but vote, dammit.
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