An Sionnach

Most of you who have been around my blog, or any of the sites I have designed, have seen some of my graphical work.  For years I have been toying around with graphics.  Outside of any formal art classes from back in high school, everything I have learned has been self taught, as well a being a gift from my creator.  For years my mom, dad, and aunt have hassled me about wasting this God given talent that I have.  Friends have pointed out my natural gift and have always asked for assistance when working on designs themselves.  And it wasn’t until recently that I realized that I am completely wasting this gift, and settling for something far less that only gets me by.  So after thorough examination of myself, my gifts and what I want in life; as well as some encouragement from some people close to me I have decided to enroll myself into college for a degree in Graphic Design.  It is an online course, fully accredited.  The first year focuses on the graphical aspects of the course, which will give me a diploma, as well as the skills to begin work as a graphical artist.  Once I have the diploma I can then pursue my Associates and Bachelors degree in one of two fields.  Graphic Design or Interactive Graphical Media allowing me to progress further into the field.  Classes start on Oct 1st, so InshAllah (God Willing) my Federal Loans with pull through in enough time to purchase books, supplies, and possibly a Mac.  I could stick with the PC, which I will stick with if I need to, but most graphical artists use a Mac and are usually looking for someone with Mac experience.  If I purchase one later then I will have to repurchase most of the software again for the Mac OS.  So hopefully things will work out.  The other tough part will be working, and taking courses at the same time.  Fortunately with online courses you can work on your own schedule, as long as you meet the necessary requirements set by the school.  I have to say I am pretty excited, and looking for this yet another challenge in my life.

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach

A graphic put together as a proposal for the Asheville Tourists. The site proposal would include a team forum, 3d stadium view, ticket sales, and a newsletter.

Graphic Design.

Needless to say the tourists did not take the proposal.

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach
A template driven site designed for a religious community.

Graphic Design, Layout, Template Design, HTML, PHP, Forums, Javascript, Search utility, Search Engine Optimization, Banner Exchange, Link Exchange (with voteable link directory).

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach

A website for a web design company.

Graphic Design, css, layout.

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach

This site was done for a friend of mine, who is also priest at St. Spyridon Greek Orthodox Cathedral, and has been a huge support to the clan here at Doxos.

Fr. Gregory wanted his theme base around some old maps, so I could pass up the opportunity to use a map that I found, that was based around sacred geography. Some editing to the image, and some color enhancement, crop, cut, slice and dice; and she was ready for import into pMachine which was installed a few months ago. The php and css was edited using Dreamweaver.

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach

A template driven site designed for the New York Annual Conference Chrysalis Community.

Graphic Design, Layout, Template Design, HTML, PHP, Forums, Javascript, Search utility, PDF, Search Engine Optimization, E-mail Scripting. Education.

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach

Here is one of my current projects. Basically it will be an entry page, with a little bit of info, for ordering photographs from paintball tournaments, and scenario games.

Graphic Design, Flash, HTML, CSS, integration with photo printing studio and shopping cart.

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach

Design for a local Antiochian Orthodox Church using pMachine blogging software.

Graphic Design, Layout, CSS, HTML, PHP, pMachine Integration, Javascript.

Originally uploaded by An Sionnach

Well it was an honor doing the complete rebuild of this site, particularly since it bears the name of my patron saint. The first thing we did was come up with a design. Fr. Peter took a look at my past work, and really liked the design I did for St. Raphaels, and opted to go for a similar design. I have never been fond of reusing a design, but since St. Raphaels is now closed I decided it would be ok, although did make a few adjustments so that it would not be a complete duplicate.

The design part was fun. First off was the finding a decent icon of St. Michael that would compliment the site. Then was customizing the header image. If you look closely on the left you will see an image of the church incorporated into the header, as well as a photo of Southbridge which was used to give the image some depth. The font used is a Romanian font.

Once the design was complete, it was time to start creating the CSS and putting in the content. This probably took up the most time, due to the amount of code cleanup that needed to be done from the previous design that was done in Frontpage, which is notorious for putting in extra code.

There are still of few things that need to be done, like get a picture of Fr. Peter up, create a links page, the contact page and the intro to Orthodoxy page.

You can check out the site here, before and after. Critique and suggestions is always welcome.