The new design is up, and what a relief! This design is the third iteration of badassideas.com, and I decided to take it in a whole new direction than the previous two. Inspired by a piece of paper I bought in the art store and all of the different snippets from my inspiration board, I went for a handmade, typographic, printed feel. This design reflects who I am and the style that I fancy. I love site redesign launches because its so much fun writing posts about process, but this site’s process was anything but usual because I was the client.
A little bit about the design
The texture in the background was scanned in and modified from a sheet of Strathmore paper that came in a pack of paper trading cards.
The Typeface used in the header is a modified version of Alejandro Paul’s Burgues Script complimented by Zuzana Licko’s Mrs. Eaves, and the flourish was a fresh find from istock photo that I heavily modified.
I decided to continue using Mrs Eaves in this design because the imperfections in the letter forms makes digital type look as if it was printed on a press. Mrs Eaves also has a great story, typefaces with great stories are the best kind. Burgess Script also has a fantastic story (Which I talk about in this post), but it is also one of most entertaining typefaces I have ever worked with. With endless swashes, ligatures and alternates, I opened my glyphs pallet and a whole weekend got away from me.
Before arriving at any of these ideas I had done tons of simple comps and inspiration boards that got rejected, but there was one logo-mark that really stuck with me but did not work well in the overall composition. Inspired by Janis Joplin’s tattoo, I used Astype Ornaments Accolades B to come up with this mark. Though this design didn’t end up in the final product it went on to inspire many of the other small details you see throughout the site.
I plan on writing a future post giving you insight into some of the other decisions I made during the design and build-out process, especially the decision to use WordPress instead of Expression Engine for this implementation. I look forward to hearing what you guys think, please be constructive if you have suggestions. I will probably keep tweaking some things. If you see any little bugs or problems please reach out to me via my contact form and let me know what browser you are using. Thanks.
26 Comments
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the new design. The typography is beautiful and love all the subtle details.
— February 23, 2009
I LOVE this design! I dabble in art, but only in hand sketching, painting, and sculpting. I’m trying to learn more about graphic design, and I don’t think my brain will ever be able to compute the path between hand and ‘puter screen. So this info about how you designed this theme is extremely interesting to me.
Thanks for sharing your processes! :)
Lisha
— February 23, 2009
Great work Sam! The new site looks badass!
— February 23, 2009
Very nice! The attention to detail is fantastic.. from the menu to this comment form, all very nice :)
well done!
— February 23, 2009
Love it!! Wow very cool. I am so impressed you can pull all this together so well. Its my single greatest challenge - to see a design concept as “one” - if you get what I mean?
Very cool :-D
— February 23, 2009
Great job Sam! Love all the details. This may be the best purple website ever!
— February 23, 2009
Excellent work, Samantha! The little details in the design and interaction (hover effects, etc.) really make the new layout great.
— February 23, 2009
Love the redesign Sam. The paper texture adds a nice feel!
— February 23, 2009
LOVE IT!!! All of the hard work has paid off! I like the change on the about pg photo ;)
— February 23, 2009
Redesign looks great! Love the vibe, love the details. Congrats on getting it launched.
— February 23, 2009
Nice job! Love your useful and inspiring posts.
— February 23, 2009
Nice work Samantha, and a nice contrast to the previous site. I’m really digging the Burgues font selection and how you’re using it.
— February 23, 2009
Thanks everyone for your fantastic comments! I really appreciate them.
I still have some work left to do like…er, spiffing up the comments… so you can look for those tweaks in the next few days.
Thanks!!!
— February 23, 2009
Awesome work on this new design, I have been folowing your site for some time, and this design exceeds the last design to a whole new level.
The logo is simply amazing, nice work on it. I’m in LOVE with it. ;D
— February 23, 2009
First of all, nice redesign, love the calm style with good typo, congratz…
Still some issues? Like the comments? Or are they supposed to be on other levels?
— February 23, 2009
Nice job, Samantha! The site looks great. Love this comment area, btw. The nails are a nice touch.
— February 23, 2009
The new design is great. I bet it feels great to finally have it live, too. Designing for yourself is so much harder than any regular project!
— February 23, 2009
Samantha it looks beautiful. I love how you walked us through your inspiration and processes!
— February 24, 2009
Samantha, I left my comment on the wrong post. Feel free to move it to the bottom of this one!
— February 25, 2009
The design is great.
— February 26, 2009
Samantha!! It looks fantastic!!! wow. Congratulations on the new site launch, you should be so proud of yourself!!! Love it. :)
Hijiri
— February 26, 2009
Oooo… pretty… the background is so unique and I can’t stop looking at the logo. Very inspiring!
— February 26, 2009
Samantha,
Seeing as all the comments so far are telling you how great the site is, I figured it might help you to have an opinion to the contrary. Here goes… hmmm… well, you could have made the… and the texture is kind of… oh darn! I can’t find any problems. Fine, it looks great! Terrific job!
— March 4, 2009
Samantha, I cannot express how much I love the shades of purple you used here. Your new design kicks ass!
— March 9, 2009
I found this site today, it´s simlpy greaaaaaat.
I love the retro style, the colors, the fonts, everithing.
Congrats.
— March 16, 2009
Awesome design. Truly marvelous. I tweeted it. :)
— March 23, 2009