VectorDefector » design

VectorDefector Gates are Flooding!

Tom Benway — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:38:41 +0000

I’m proud to say business is booming this summer! I know I’ve addressed this topic before, but now is the time to be a freelancer. Its nice to have that “busy but not overworked” feeling again. Moreover, its even nicer to be busy and not have the general stress that goes along with working in an office (even though I miss the water-cooler talk).

I’m collaborating with a number of friends and agencies over the next couple of months and, quite honestly, they all kick butt! I’m working with my associates CustomChannels.net to establish some rockin’ home-grown Flash-based radio stations, my buddies at Mindflint and I are cookin’ up some fun and creative web projects, the folks at GraphikCreative and I knocked out some simple quizzes for Sleep Center of the Rockies, the crew at Barnaby and Associates and I are about to produce one of my most ambitious WordPress sites, B-Squared Design and I are collaborating on a nice new portfolio site, and my buddy Doug Koke and I have landed some team design projects.

Whew! I’ll have specific updates on each of these projects as soon as they’re to go. Stay tuned!

Also, if you’re looking to contact me for work, I’m probably going to be busy until the middle of July at least- but that doesn’t mean we can’t chat about a future project!

Smile-Radio: Launch

Tom Benway — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:56:55 +0000

Earlier last week, I completed and launched Smile-Radio, a marketing site developed for my associates at CustomChannels to pitch their new product: streaming radio targeted at dentists.

SmileRadio.com

Dubbed “Music for the Modern Dental Practice”, Smile Radio is a very “Web 2.0″ looking custom-themed CSS site running off the WordPress platform (along with a few strategically placed custom plug-ins) and will soon have an automated ordering and tracking system for e-commerce payment traction.

In addition to the layout and tracking system, I also developed the accompanying Flash streaming media player and hand-crafted the branding. Lookin’ sharp! CustomChannels and I will be doing more work in the future including a new Flash radio player with unique statistical tracking. Look out, web!

Sharpening my Design Chops

Tom Benway — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:02:46 +0000

I’ve been very pleased to say I’ve been bidding and contracting for more and more jobs that involve both design and development this year. When I re-established my business, it was one of my goals to be the most well-rounded creative professional I could be and admittedly had some rusty spots- design being one of them as it wasn’t a huge part of my last job and practice makes perfect.

I proud to say a lot of my designs and logo illustrations are really coming around. I’ve always thought my metaphor for design was painting on a large blank canvas and the idea is to get one great idea; whereas in development its more like putting a big puzzle together- the painting is already there, you just have to figure out the most efficient order in which to put the pieces together.

It all seems to be relating together well this month. Three cheers for covering all bases: design, development, search optimization and streaming media! Case studies to follow soon.