Core Systems
Client: IDG.net / Contract: Freelance
Designing a site for the Sunnyvale-based seminconductor parts maker was actually a lot of fun. Like a lot of successful niche-market companies, they just hadn't gotten around to getting a proper site. The job was brought to me by one of my IDG colleagues who had a family connection to the company.
While the site had to be functional in that part of its raison d'etre was being an ordering UI, I could see that there were no plans by the firm to maintain the site's content. There was also no in-house web design know-how and no publishing system or DB, so I wanted to keep everything very clean and spare. Which, of course, I rather prefer.
Simple, spare, compatible. No templates, no Flash, hardly any images. So what are its superpowers?
- Colour. Predominantly and exuberantly Dead Ringers red, with accents in fluorescent green (yes it is, and I laught at your doubts), black and white. Just four colours for the entire site, excepting the shades of red in the photos.
- Typography. Jason Kottke's Silkscreen is still the most versatile pixel font. And it's a shareware (do donate though).
- Size: Under 20K on every page. (If stuff got added by their staff, I don't know about it.)
While the job as a whole was not as smooth as I'd hoped due to the fact that the client and I had very different ideas about pacing, I think they were satisfied with what they got. I also gave them bargain rates. The site was live for over 2 years, then oddly enough, they reverted to what they had prior to the redesign.
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