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Hey guys, Well it has been a crazy couple weeks here at our shop. I’ve got my first magazine article published in one of my favorite magazines, SignCraft. I’m really excited about that. Plus, as some of you might have already seen from Barry’s post I just finished up his site at digitaflames.net. And… I’ve rebuilt my own site. I didn’t want to take away from Barry’s post so I just wanted to take a little bit of time to talk about the site for diazmedia .
We finished up the site for Diaz Sign Art earlier this year. And since then I have been working on my own, mostly on my free time, which I have very little of lately. So it took a little time to finish up. But it’s done and I’m pretty happy. One of the major changes for this site is the obvious; it isn’t all flash like my last 5 versions have been. I wanted it to be recognized this time around on the search engines. I still wanted to maintain a strong flash presence on this site because I do a lot of flash work so it was tricky to find a good balance.
Another difference is that rather than keeping this site my own personal portfolio I wanted it to reflect all of us and to start taking shape as a division of Diaz Sign Art.
One of the new features that I’m the excited about is pick-a-theme feature. I thought it would be cool for browsers to be able to select their own background theme. I plan on making more in the future, especially during the holiday seasons. One of the main reasons I’m doing this is that I have a severe case of A.D.D. when it comes to my own work. If I had unlimited amounts of time I would rebuild this site once a month. But we all know that’s not constructive. So when ever I get the urge to try something new I can easily change the appearance of this site with out starting over from scratch. I plan on doing something similar for an upcoming project so I wanted to see how it was received here first.
There is some thought behind each of these themes. The nature based theme represents our need to protect this planet. It is a beautiful home to live on and the only home we have. No matter what differences we have, there is one thing we all share in common and that is this planet.
The Bob Ross theme represents teachers. I have been blessed to have many influential teachers in my life that have been kind enough to share their knowledge. I wouldn’t say Bob Ross has taught me personally a lot, but he is a face that many people can identify and he does teach…. Plus I’ve always wanted a fro.
The speaker theme represents my love of music. If I wasn’t doing what I do now I would probably find a career in the music industry. When I was in high school and college I had a band that I spent a good deal of my time with. Some of my best memories and friends come form that experience.
Okay the space gorilla theme doesn’t really represent anything; I was just playing with my 3d design software and came up with this theme. I’ve always liked the idea of having some sort of animated character acting as the host of a website. I’ve done that sort of thing on earlier sites and people tend to enjoy it.
Let me know what you guys think.
[ July 12, 2007, 09:24 AM: Message edited by: Joseph Diaz ]
-------------------- Joe Diaz Diaz Sign Art 628 W. Lincoln Ave. Pontiac, IL 61764 www.diazsignart.com Posts: 538 | From: Pontiac, IL | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
You never cease to amaze me. Well done. The themes are cool.
One thing, though. Lose the apostrophes on "it's" in the opening statement.
quote: "I like to think of diazmedia as an advertising firm that goes above and beyond the expectation of it’s customers. A company that listens to what it’s clients have to say and then helps them discover the best ways to promote their product or services."
That's not the possessive form, it's a contraction of "it is".
-------------------- David Harding A Sign of Excellence Carrollton, TX Posts: 5084 | From: Carrollton, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
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hey Joseph,is that daz model's your working with? thats a cool website..............just wondering.......YOUR STUFF ROCKS......very well put together.........AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!
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Joe, You are doing an excellent job with this work. Very imaginative. I would be interested in knowing if your traffic improves with the changes you mentioned to improve search engine recognition.
Keep up the great work.
[ July 11, 2007, 11:35 PM: Message edited by: dave parr ]
-------------------- Dave Parr Sign Painter USA Posts: 709 | From: USA | Registered: May 2003
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Really unusual! I love it too; the logos are suitably designed to fit the company; Bernie's right: you rock! The theme idea is cool! This way the customer can be involved too. Did you take classes to learn how to build the websites? It's interesting to me.
-------------------- Deb Fowler
"It's kind of fun to do the impossible - Walt Disney (1901-1966) Posts: 5373 | From: Loves Park, Illinois | Registered: Aug 1999
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Great stuff Joe- well done, & thanks for the explanations too!
(& another little correction in your opening post "guy's" the second word....tut tut, no apostrophe needed for guys, the plural of guy- please edit it out-thanks!)
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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-------------------- Ryan Culbertson The Sign Shop at Quick Copies Greenwood, SC
Rock and Roll means well, but it can’t help tellin’ young boys lies. Mike Cooley - Drive By Truckers Posts: 453 | From: Greenwood, South Carolina | Registered: Apr 2007
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Ha ha I guess I went apostrophe crazy thanks for the get. What can I say, I love those apostrophes.
Weekend at Bernie’s, Yeah those are daz models. When building 3D animations I use Poser, and Maya for the movements then I do touchup work with a program called Shade. Then I use various video editing programs to help line up the sound with the images and to compress the whole movie clip. The tricky part is including it into the flash, so that they are interactive, which is something I have been trying more lately. To be honest the 3d section of my site isn’t quite done yet. I need to include more work into the portfolio and make it so that when you select the figure it will pull up a movie clip of the characters animation. I also want to include more 3D logos into that section. I use Corel to build those logos. The Space Gorilla movie on the 3D page isn’t quite done either. My best friend form school is in the radio business and he is going to help me record some audio for that clip. When the movie is done it will be about 3 times as long and he will speak.
The 3D stuff is a little new and to be honest a little hard to sell, but I see elements like that really making designs unique and eye-catching. I’m kind of taking Dan Sawatzky approach to things by trying something not so much unique, because I’m definitely not the only one that uses 3D elements like this in their work, but something that is not the norm.
Dave, I’m sure it will help, although there was much more I could have done to make this site even more search engine friendly. I felt that I didn’t want that aspect of this site to dictate how the over all appearance is. I wanted to avoid making the site too wordy and too repetitive. But, I’m a firm believer in finding a balance between appearance and functionality. I think the main thing that is going to help me with this site, especially locally, is the promotional work that I plan on doing. The old sites have mainly been a place for friends and family to visit and for me to try new things, rather than experiment on my customers.
Deb, I did take a few classes in college, unfortunately I didn’t go to a design school so I couldn’t take placement tests to move me ahead to the level I was at at that time. But those classes were still helpful, I gained a better understanding for the code that makes up these webpages. Other than that most of every thing I have learned has been self taught. I come up with the designs and ideas first, then I figure out how to accomplish that by renting or buying books, searching online for answers and simply studying at other designers work. After a while it all starts to stick.
-------------------- Joe Diaz Diaz Sign Art 628 W. Lincoln Ave. Pontiac, IL 61764 www.diazsignart.com Posts: 538 | From: Pontiac, IL | Registered: Aug 2005
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Cool,I thought Ive seen the Gorilla on there site,Hey there's a Transformer model on there now for free,go check it out........cant wait to see your updates on your site,I use poser and bryce6,and daz studio,I have maya but have not messed with it much....
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