CollyLogic: The all new jonburgerman.com

The all new jonburgerman.com

15th March 2005

Finally, I can announce the launch of the new Jon Burgerman website.

Even if you haven’t heard of Jon, (or read previous posts on this site) you’ve surely seen his work for clients such as Virgin, Diesel, the BBC, The Guardian, Computer Arts Magazine and approx eight million others. It’s been a joy to work with Jon on his new site. Here’s a bit more detail…

A head-start from Jon

For years, Jon had been too busy to really keep on top of his static HTML/Flash site. It was a great site, but there had to be a better way of keeping things up to date, and he needed to quickly post new work as he did it with the minimum of fuss.

Jon’s on the ball when it comes to planning a project. He’d tell you he’s rubbish, but he’s too modest. After a brief chat about what he wanted and what we could deliver, Jon put together a comprehensive Illustrator layout detailing how he saw the thing coming together. This included navigation hierarchy and simplified page layouts. Click for a larger view:

From such a great head-start, a few hours spent with Expression Engine gave us a navigable site, with images carved directly from the Illustrator files. Flash was a factor from the start, but emphasis on valid, standards-compliant code was also important.

Don’t work with children, animals or artists

I often find that there are compromises to be made when working with a client who creates for a living, be they artist, illustrator or just someone who deals in aesthetics. Early on, Jon and I identified areas where our approaches might clash. I don’t like “splash” pages, Jon does, and people expect them from him. I don’t like opening things in new windows, or excessive use of Javascript popups, but these were essential in Jon’s sketchbook section. Working all of this out early on led to a very smooth development stage.

For me, it has to be about the end user. If Jon’s audience expect a certain something, let them have it. If a couple of pages don’t validate, then so be it. I have to accept that. Such decisions are made for the good of the site, and it doesn’t pay to steam roller a client over such issues.

The finished site

Anyway, weeks and weeks of late-night emailing, tea, biscuits and tweaked animations resulted in a site that Jon can easily maintain without biting into his doodling time.

I’ve not had a great deal of time to fine-toothed comb the site yet. I know that most of the Flash is cosmetic, and replacement isn’t a key factor yet. I do want to make all pages validate, because I’m a Virgo. Given time, I might also clean up the stylesheets and Javascript. For now, I think Jon and I just want to launch the bloody thing and let it bed in.

If you love illustration, go visit the site now!

Big thanks to Jon for the t-shirt, stickers, lovely framed painting and other non-bankable methods of payment. See, I can be bought...

Simon Collison published this on 15/03/05, at 7:20 PM

Comments

That is a beauty so it is… and those illustrations, wow!

15/03 at 20:49 from John Oxton

That’s a cool site. I just lost an hour in it. Nice simple design. Lets the work stand up for itself. The flash details are reeaally nice.

15/03 at 21:28 from James

Fantastic site. I’m not a fan of splash screens either, but it really works in this case.

Geoff

16/03 at 11:36 from GeoffC

Damn, that’s a ridiculously awesome site. @.@ I’m in awe, Monsieur Collison. And I think the Flash elements are merged very nicely, indeed!

My only beef is that the comments section doesn’t look nearly as polished as the rest of the sites. But other than that, bravo.

16/03 at 21:24 from Lea

Hey everyone, big thanks for the positive feedback.

Lea: There are quite a few bits still needing attention. You might notice that the comments section looks very similar to these ones...ahem.

Also, kudos to Linkdup, Pixelsurgeon, Bear Skin Rug, Design Is Kinky, Newstoday, Netdiver and all the others who flagged up Jon’s new site and gave him 20,000 hits in the first 24 hours. They love him…

16/03 at 21:45 from Simon Collison

Oi, I didn’t know you plugged it already in Stylegala, cause I wrote a little glowing review over it on Stylegala as well. Oh, well, David still needs to approve it to make it go live…

Go, Simon, go! :D

16/03 at 21:57 from Lea

Cor! Cheers Lea. Hope he’ll publish it, seeing as I’m also a reviewer there. Do it for Jon, Dave!

16/03 at 22:01 from Simon Collison

Job well done! The site does a fantastic job of representing the work. And everyone should definitely go buy Hello Duudle too - it’s amazing! Folds out to a 1.5m mural of his characters…

17/03 at 19:19 from Mike Stenhouse

Oh, it’s a beauty alright! Nice one Colly. Zeebzeeb screensavers are the way to go.

18/03 at 20:23 from Mark Boulton

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