shu shu’

Boasting fashions that can’t be found anywhere even close to Windsor, Ontario, shu shu’ provides its customers with fashions that they’re not likely to see on anyone else when they step out. Owners and sisters, Sandra Lefeve, and Monica Brotto, decided that they wanted a bit of a facelift for the site they’ve had since opening in 2004. They sought a website redesign, and specifically wanted their customers to be able to view their product line without the big image load times they were experiencing. We implemented a solution that uses online image hosting by “flickr”.

How we help this fashion boutique

Website Design & Development

Some javascript and image resizing solved the issue of an online gallery, and now the product line is easily viewable on the slick and sexy new site. The website was coded to validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and CSS level 2.1, although shows errors beyond our control when put through the validator. This site was already being hosted by Yahoo, and still is. Unfortunately, the javascript automatically injected by Yahoo for geo-targeting has a bunch of errors involved, but luckily doesn’t actually break the page.

Image Resizing and Optimization

As the seasons change, so too do the fashions at shu shu’. When new photos are furnished by the owners, we crop and resize them, and alter the javascript to reflect the presence of new gallery photos.

Smoke & Spice Southern Barbeque

Smoke & Spice Southern Barbeque opened in September of 2008, at 1515 Ottawa Street in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It features a “niche” product for this area, as no restaurant in Windsor features this unique style of cuisine. Good Egg Design created the bulk of the restaurant’s in-house print marketing materials, including their logo, menus for dine-in, take-out, and kids’ menus, business cards, and comment cards.

How we help this barbeque joint

Website Design & Development

SmokenSpice(dot)com was designed to feel as warm and inviting as the restaurant. The colour palette was chosen from photo samples of the actual interior, and of course, was created to be W3C compliant to validate for XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and CSS level 2.1. Yes, if you put the site through the validator, you will find 4 CSS “errors”. These were implemented quite purposely to take advantage of the proprietary rounded corner feature for some browsers to display on buttons used on the menu page. Though they show up as errors, the page doesn’t break in browsers that don’t support the feature. Instead, the buttons just have 90 degree corners rather than being rounded.

Logo Design

Restaurant folks are often real “hands-on” people, and the Odettes are no different. Ryan had very specific ideas about the “feel” he wanted in a logo, and it was centered around a particular font. He didn’t know what that font was at the time, because it was something he could only see in his head. We went through dozens (maybe even more that a hundred) before finding one that best matched what he imagined. We added a colour gradient, and a logo was born. Logos don’t get a lot more simple than the business name etched in a particular font, and for this client, it clicked.

Email Marketing

Owners Ryan & Tina Odette host a “VIP Birthday Club” on their website which serves to market to regular customers via email. Good Egg Design manages their list of thousands, and sends periodic marketing blasts to the list that keep folks aware of what’s new, and often involves a special offer.

Menus

We created the dine-in, take-out, and kid’s menus.

Business Cards, and Comment Cards

Hand-to-hand materials were created and sent to print. Comment Cards serve to provide the owners valuable input from their guests and double as “opt-in” forms for the “VIP Birthday Club”. The business cards are being revamped, and should go into circulation within weeks.

Storefront Signage

Developed design for storefront signage, and sent the files to sign company. Subsequently, we visited the office of that company’s graphic designer to assist with the final layout.

Festival Banner

We created a twenty-foot by two-foot banner for display at the “Festival Epicure”, and Windsor’s “Bluesfest”.

Dr. Andrew Rak

Dr. Andrew Rak is located in East Windsor, Ontario, Canada, at 7106 Wyandotte Street East. In many ways, he’s a web designer’s dream. He came to us with very definite ideas about what he wanted in a website. He even had sketches in hand!

His office is accepting new patients, and besides being meticulous in his profession as well, he’s a real nice fella. If you’re as terrified of dentists as we are, this is your guy. He’s got a real knack for giving people the “warm and fuzzies” that we consider so important.

How we help this dentist

Website Design & Development

It’s rare that a client is able to be as specific about what they would like as Andrew Rak was, but with copy, photos, and ideas at the ready, it was just a matter of actively listening to him describe his vision, then execute it to the best of our ability.

It’s probably a little inaccurate to have the word “Design” in this heading, given that the Doc had pretty much taken care of that on paper, but this website represents good collaboration between a client and an egghead. Through good communication we were able to take the ideas that Dr. Rak came to us with and make them appear on a webpage. We’re pleased to report that he’s just smitten with the results.

This website is a table-based design, a practice that we have become vehemently opposed to, so the development of this site is slated to be redone and hand-coded from scratch to be W3C web standards-compliant. We’ll be taking care of that on our time and on our dime.

CoD Zombies

On November 11, 2008, Treyarch released “Call of Duty: World at War” to the online gaming community. As a part of that release, a cooperative campaign called “Nazi Zombies” offers a player the chance to team up with up to three other people to fend off the undead. Difficulty ramps up as each stage of zombies is conquered.

This site was created to serve as a hub for all of those that are addicted to the “Nazi Zombie” COOP Campaign in “Call of Duty: World at War”, so that they might share tips and resources, stories, screenshots, and movie clips, all pertaining to vanquishing the undead.

How we help these online gaming enthusiasts (side project)

Website Design & Development

As this was to become a community site, there are a number of authors contributing content. To facilitate the input of information and articles by numerous people, the “Joomla” CMS was employed on this project.

Though having multiple authors can sometimes cause some validation headaches, this website still successfully validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and CSS level 2.1.

JesterCraft Web Design

This could be called “GoodEggDesign.com 2.0″, as it was the second site used for our purposes. Ultimately, the decision was made to do away with anything “Jester”, as we suspected that it didn’t exactly inspire consumer confidence.

What we did on our project

Website Design & Development

JesterCraft Web Design was our first site done using completely validating code. We said goodbye to using tables for design layout forever, having freshly learned CSS. Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and CSS level 2.1, it used a lot of white space, was very clean, and used very simple typography. Though still a source of pride, we’ve come to view it as just too “corporate feeling” for our brand.

Business Cards

Made to match the website’s look and feel, we still have hundreds of these left over. If anyone has ideas as to how to make good and constructive use of them, please give us a shout.

REDSQUAD Gaming

This group of people has been gaming together online through their PC’s for years, beginning with the “Medal of Honor: Allied Assault” game released in January of 2002. Though now relatively inactive, members still visit the forums area to say hello from time to time.

How we help this online gaming clan (side project)

Website Design & Development

Given that this site revolves around membership, a custom CMS built on the “e107″ engine was employed on this project. It allows for numerous administrators to manage content and members. As well, sidebar widgets can be activated or deactivated as necessary.

The [RSQ] site was coded to be 100% standards-compliant. Given the number of videos on the site, however, putting a page through the validator shows dozens of errors. The stock code for embedding video provided by YouTube is unfortunately non-compliant, but the page doesn’t break.

Logo Design

Using colours and symbols that have specific significance in heraldry, a logo was created as a coat of arms. A flag for the organization was created as well using some of the same heraldry references.

Mamo Bistro

Though it was located in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Mamo Bistro boasted four stars for food and service from Detroit Michigan’s “Metro Times”. This contemporary bistro also received acclaim from the “Detroit News”, and WindsorEats.com. It represented Chef Ryan Odette’s first foray into the world of restaurant ownership.

How we helped this quaint bistro

Website Design & Development

The restaurant is now closed, but this website, with its varied and bright colour palette, was a good online visual representation of the seasonally based cuisine at this fine bistro. This design took advantage of 100% of a site visitor’s screen, and typography was kept to no more than two different fonts, one of which was included in the the logo designed by David Odette.

JesterCraft

Nested tables, inline styling, no style sheet, oh my! This was our first business site. It’s a part of this gallery to keep us humble. By all modern measures, this site was a disaster. We still got some complements on it, but as we quickly learned about not-even-really-that-new web technologies, we realized we had built something that was archaic right out of the box. A great learning experience, that never stops teaching.

What we did on our first website (personal project)

Website Design & Development

Though technologically unsound, there were likely cosmetic reasons that we got compliments. The typography was very readable, and the logo and navigation used an elegant, throwback Hollywood marquee-looking font called “Bonnie Regular”. A very conscious choice back then, but now we probably wouldn’t choose it unless we were working on an independent filmmaker’s site, or the blog of a theatrical twelve year old girl. The choices of blue and red that carried into the next incarnation of the JesterCraft brand as well, started here.

Ambert, Stilton, & Limberger

This is a completely fictitious site representing a cheesy law firm. It exists only for the sake of demonstration. We will be developing some custom W3C standards-compliant templates that will be housed in a gallery for prospective clients to peruse. This will end up among them, though probably done with a variety of different colour schemes and font stacks.

What we did on this portfolio piece (side project)

Website Design & Development

Navigation was created using a vertical menu (with submenus for some) using javascript. It validates in XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS 2.1. The colours were chosen to infuse some Canuck pride somewhere in the portfolio. The layout is very clean and simple. Framed vertically, with a background gradient, it’s a good example of a site that could represent a company providing professional services of some kind.