Specific elements included a big, colorful announcement of the new album on the home page and changes to the site-wide background image. Replacing an image of Jorge singing and playing guitar from his previous album, Here I Am, the new background depicts a stylized photo of the musician’s hands playing the guitar. This background comes directly from the Gracias Madrecita CD insert artwork.

The new website design also features two additional pages for Gracias Madrecita. One shows photos from the making and recording of the album, while the other provides MP3 song samples which can be played directly on the site. The site also gives users links to buy the album online. Finally, the redesign adds Gracias Madrecita to Jorge’s discography database.

Prominent new features on the site are the home page—with its Gracias Madrecita theme and album artwork—and the Gracias Madrecita pages added deeper into the site.

The newest release of the site adds vibrant color and design elements into the existing site structure. By swapping out the subtle site-wide background image, visitors get a sense of change throughout the site. The new Gracias Madrecita graphic elements are a great color play and focal point for the site.

JorgeSantana.com’s Redesign Promotes His Newest Album, Gracias Madrecita is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design

WebSight Design is very proud to be a part of the Doobons.com launch. WSD was involved with extensive development and design, as well as search engine optimization. The Doobons site is clean and organized, creating a highly user-friendly interface.

Doobons is a legal medical marijuana dispensary search engine dedicated to providing medical marijuana advice, promotions, and other resources to anybody who might benefit from the use of medical marijuana.

Doobons traces its beginnings to an unsuspecting family member whose father was diagnosed with cancer. When traditional treatments were unable to effectively manage the patient’s pain and chemotherapy was causing a debilitating inability to eat, Doobons’ founder began to search for alternative medicines.

Unaware of how to navigate the world of legal medical marijuana, the Doobons founders quickly realized that no user-friendly and moreover no patient-friendly resources existed to serve those in need of this alternative medicine.

When he saw the great response the patient had, he knew that something had to be done to help patients and their caregivers. Doobons was born.

The site features interactive maps of medical marijuana dispensaries, doctors, lawyers, or other cannabis related businesses. Additionally, location based deals and discounts allow patients to access the very best price for their medication.

Doobons also provides comprehensive resources, such as information on how to get your medical marijuana doctor’s recommendation or cannabis card, which strains or forms of intake are best for particular illnesses or ailments, as well as current up-to-date news.

Doobons is committed connecting medical marijuana patients with the legal help and rights information that they need.

The Doobons team is highly committed to the cure and treatment of ailments which can be treated by alternative medicines. They have begun donating and giving back to the foundations such as The American Cancer Society.

Doobons business members can create profiles including video and photo galleries, company information, reviews section, and product menu option. They also have  the opportunity to create and post banner and geo-targeted ads on the Doobons site, as well as send out email notifications to Doobons patient members.

Doobons.com had its official public launch over the past weekend, November 11 to 13, at the HempCon medical marijuana show in San Jose, and the owners are gearing up to have the Southern California release this coming weekend, November 18 to 20, at the KushExpo in Orange County. Don’t miss your chance to meet the great founders of Doobons.com!

Doobons Launches as the First Truly Professional and Patient-Oriented Medical Marijuana Resource! is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design

Bennet Engelhardt, Marketing Director

Bennet began working at WebSight Design in 2009. With an MBA from Loyola Marymount in LA, she has always had an interest in branding and has used this to her favor in her strong background in the field of marketing. Trained by Alan Bleiweiss, one of the most respected experts in the SEO community, Bennet is responsible for developing, implementing, and evaluating SEO strategies for WebSight Design clients.

See how Bennet responded to the following questions:

Q: What are the three most exciting/memorable things that have happened to you since you have been working at WSD (inside or outside of work)?

A: Oh geez… SO much has happened in the past two years… Living with my sisters in San Francisco! Wine tasting at Flowers Vineyard and Winery (my favorite). And going on a European adventure with my best friend Katy!

Q: What is the best part about working at WebSight Design?

A: Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge every morning and evening. It’s breathtaking!

Q: What do you like doing outside of work?

A: Traveling (more than anything else)!! Spending time with my family and best friends. And going to baseball games!

Q: What is your hometown?

A: Palm Beach, FL

Q: What is your educational background?

A: I spent 6 years studying at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles where I received a BS in Accounting, a BBA in Marketing with a minor in Hispanic Business Studies, and an MBA with an emphasis in Marketing and International Business.

Q: Do you have any pets?

A: Penny!! A Golden Retriever who I swear is half English Bulldog.

Q: What is your favorite book?

A: Oh man. Too many to choose from…. Pride and Prejudice, The Outsiders, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Twilight series, anything by Emily Giffin, The Other Boleyn Girl… I can’t pick just one!

Q: What is your favorite sports team?

A: Atlanta Braves

Q: Where is your favorite place that you have traveled to?

A: Paris. I feel at home there.

Q: Mac or PC?

A: Mac!

Q: Do you have a favorite quotation? If so, what is it?

A: “Love is all.” –My grandma’s motto.  And… “A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.” –Coco Chanel

Meet the Team: Bennet Engelhardt, Marketing Director is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design

What work at WSD are you most proud of?

All our launches! Every time we launch a new site it feels like sending my kids out into the world – anxious and proud . We do awesome development work here and it is always a great feeling to see a completely custom project go live.

What is the best part about working at WSD?

The team for sure. The people that work here are an excellent team. They all have strengths that contribute to a well-rounded, butt-kicking group

What cool project are you working on right now?

We just launched Smartmeetings.com, which was a huge project because it was the roll out of our WSD framework 1.5. We made big strides in the flexibility of our admin for that site. I am very proud to launch that one.

Film Connection is the next big project out the door. This one also uses the new 1.5 framework, but is a 100% expandable page manager, complete with mouse-over image control and drag and drop page sorting. It’s really cool!

If you weren’t working at WSD, what other kind of work would you be doing?

Wishing I worked at WSD, haha. No honestly, I love this job. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else.

What is your hometown?

Born in San Francisco, raised in Marin. I will always be a California girl.

What is your educational background?

I started off college as a marketing major, but I ended up graduating with a degree in programming. I think it helps my niche of client services vs programmer logic

What do you like doing outside of work?

I am a huge video game buff so I spend most of my time playing games. I love RPGs, adventure games and platformers the most, but I will play the occasional shooter.

If I am not playing video games, I am usually watching different anime series or going out to a movie.

Where is your favorite place that you have traveled to?

I loved going to Thailand the most. The country is so beautiful and the sales are amazing!

Mac or PC?

Haha, do you even need to ask? PC all the way! Pfft on Steam for Mac, I still got the lock down on 90% of the games market.

Do you have a favorite quotation? If so, what is it?

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” -Albert Einstein

Meet the WebSight Design Team: Vanessa Thomas is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design

These days, during the few moments when he’s not working, Alex can be found at home with his wife Marisa and new baby Maya or, if possible, out on a skiing or fly fishing adventure.

What is the best part about working at WSD?

Interacting with a group of extremely bright colleagues.

What is your most challenging daily task?

Remaining calm, patient, and rational while clients do the inverse.

What is your favorite daily task?

Looking at the accounts receivable report.

What do you consider the best possible working environment?

35,000 feet, first class seat, wireless access and no phone!

If WSD hadn’t been started, what other kind of work would you be doing?

Fly fishing guide in the summer, ski patrol in the winter.

What is your greatest accomplishment outside of work?

Convincing my wife, Marisa Rodriguez, that she should marry me.

Mac or PC?

Mac all the way!!!

What is your biggest pet peeve?

Getting my colleagues to enter their hours accurately and in a timely manner.

What website do you visit most often?

It’s a tie between our intranet and Basecamp.

Do you have a favorite quotation?

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” -Benjamin Franklin

Meet the WebSight Design Team: Alex Paine is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design

1. Remember the Rule of Thirds.

Ever wonder why TheGridSystem.org is a 12-grid layout? It’s no accident that 12 is a multiple of three.

For a couple of thousand years, the Rule of Thirds, or the Golden Ratio for you mathematically-inclined folks, has worked an aesthetic guideline which states that a given visual space (your web site layout) should be divided horizontally and vertically into thirds, and that important design elements should be placed along the dividing lines, or at their intersections. This, the rule says, provides the most visually appealing layout. Both left- and right-brained figures throughout history, from Euclid to Rothko, have utilized this rule to create ingenious observations and works of art.

The Rule of Thirds is often tagged as the lazy man’s way to lay things out, but that’s really because of its simplicity and universality. In short, the rule works.

Web layouts are a bit trickier since the monitor size and screen resolution on everyone’s individual computers is a variable that the designer cannot control; however, if you stick with non-fluid layouts to constrain the horizontal space of your design, or use percentages in your CSS (a bit trickier, especially if non-scalable images are involved), the Rule of Thirds can provide you with focal points and design layouts that web users find easy to visually digest. Another popular method of utilizing the Rule is to design an “impact area” (often dominated by a “hero graphic”) that is divided in thirds aesthetically and is designed to be the primary focal point for the page. As the user scrolls down, simple 1/3 ratio columns for the text or remaining content can be used. Columns work well in vertically variable workspaces.

2. KISS all those pretty fonts goodbye.

Remember that annoying acronym we all learned in school? Just in case you’ve been living on a deserted island for the last decade or so, KISS stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” And that’s precisely the best way to use type fonts.

I’m not saying you can’t indulge in unique, hand-created typography, or that you can’t mix typefaces, ever. But it must be done with care and artistry. Adding in that really cool font you downloaded for free from the link your nephew in HTML class sent you may not be your best bet for communicating your client’s message.

In fact, communicating your client’s message is the goal of the web site you’re designing. If that message isn’t already contained in the design of the typeface you want to use, skip the typeface and go neutral. Something like Helvetica Bold works incredibly well to get messages across (which is why we’ve seen such a resurgence of it in the self-publishing & blogging trends). The type font does not interfere with the actual words. You have something like 1/gazillionth of a second to get your message across to the web user, so do it the fastest, clearest possible way. If that isn’t with a fancy font that says it all for you, then say it with words, and make the words concise and easy to absorb.

I like to use no more than three fonts (excluding any fancy or unduplicatable logo fonts) in my designs: one main graphic font, one secondary graphic font, and one web-safe HTML font. Save the pretty stuff for non-text graphics.

3. Don’t give up.

Sounds like touchy-feely pandering, right? Well, it’s true.

These days, Photoshop, CSS, and your own artistic talents can pretty much do anything with a layout. Anything you want. If you have an idea in your head that’s just not translating onto a sketch pad or a monitor, keep at it.

Sometimes we all get a little bit too reliant on filters and effects, and when the desired outcome isn’t met with a drop-shadow or a gradient, it’s tempting to settle for “good enough.” Don’t do it. Nobody ever won a design award by settling. No client was ever thrilled to pay for a design that was settled on. And no web user has ever been wowed by “good enough.” If that brush stroke isn’t working for you like it should, go old school: get out your ink, brushes, and watercolor paper and draw precisely the stroke you need. If that typeface just isn’t quite right, pull it into Illustrator and tweak the anchor points until it is. If you think the paper effect you’ve made isn’t convincing, grab a real piece of paper and tear the edges, fold the corners, crumple the middle until it is.

There are also plentiful tutorials and resources on the web for just about any specific effect you’re trying to achieve. Do a Google search and see what you come up with. At worst, you’ll slightly expand your knowledge. At best, you’ll learn skills and tricks that will make your web layouts really shine.

And if all else fails, get up, and take a walk around your neighborhood. Fresh air is a great re-motivator, and inspiration is all around us, all the time.

—

Stephanie Long is an artist and designer with over a decade of web-specific experience currently lending her talents as Creative Director at WebSight Design. She believes that listening to the client is the key to a successful project, and that listening to yourself is the key to a happy life. And she actually likes deadlines — go figure. Stephanie recently got a Twitter account and now feels much younger.

Like this post? You might like this one, too: Design Is Not A Pretty Picture

Three Tips To A Successful Web Site Design is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design

Over the years, we have built our own PHP development environment, based on the open-source Zend framework. We have a strong belief in the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, and strict version control with Subversion (SVN), because the results are cleaner, more efficient code. Utilizing the Zend framework also gives us access to the large and expanding library for Rapid Application Development (RAD), while still having the flexibility to customize the framework and make it our own.

Using the MVC design pattern allows us to have a clear separation of business logic and presentation logic.  This presents a distinct advantage when building web applications because it separates what the user sees from what goes on in the background.  This moves away from mixing data-layer code, such as database queries, in with your display code and allows us to create reusable modules, such as photo galleries and shopping carts, for significantly faster builds in large applications.

The MVC architecture also offers ease of maintenance, since each component (model, view and controller) is self contained, performing upgrades and changes, such as switching databases from Access to MySQL, become much less painful and cumbersome then in the past.

We make it a priority to stay on the frontline of the ever changing technology in the Web and Internet industry; currently, we are working on a 2.0 version of our framework that will use portions of Domain Driven Design (DDD) to create clean structure and more efficient code patterns.  One of the biggest changes on the way is a central code base with customizable modules.  With this 2.0 framework we will be able to increase our build time on large projects, and push upgrades to a central code base rather then individual applications.

But don’t think that since we developed our own PHP framework we are averse to working with other languages.  Just send your application our way and we are happy to roll up our sleeves, jump into your Ruby/Flash/ASP project and get our hands dirty.

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Founded in 1995, WebSight Design offers business clients a range of website design and development services, including website programming, website hosting, website marketing, and colocation management.

WebSight Design in Development is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design

Rob, originally from Lake Park, FL and a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, has been with WSD for about four years. As the Lead Engineer of our web development team, he is responsible for overall code base architecture and also day-to-day coding on top-tier clients.

What is your educational background?

I attended Florida Institute of Technology a long time ago in a state far far away.

What are the three most exciting/memorable things that have happened to you since you have been working at WSD (inside or outside of work)?

- I worked on Santana’s official site, providing some flash components.

- I got a Mac, by choice even.

- My son started kindergarten, where does the time go?

What work at WSD are you most proud of?

Our current site framework (built upon Zend’s application framework) that is still going strong with no major changes for the past couple of years.

What is the best part about working at WSD?

The people here.  We really have an outstandingly talented team here.

What do you like doing outside of work?

I like going to the gym, reading articles about nutrition and fitness in general.  Family activities.  Cooking on the grill.

What website do you visit most often?

Google. The current project I’m working on. Facebook.

Mac or PC?

Both actually, I’m bicomputational

What type of mobile phone do you have? Why did you pick it?

iPhone, mainly for application development, but my wife got one first and I can’t let her have a better phone than I do.

Do you have a favorite quotation?

“Are we having fun yet?” or “I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it and you can’t prove anything” – Bart Simpson

If you weren’t working at WSD, what other kind of work would you be doing?

Some form of web development or maybe a personal trainer.

Meet the WebSight Design Team: Rob Mudgett is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design

Billboard Magazine August 2009

Download the PDF article here

WebSight Design in the News is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design

2009 is going to be an interesting year…

Happy New Year from WSD! is a post from: WebSight Design, Inc. company blog. With headquarters in the San Francisco bay area, WebSight Design, Inc. has been providing world class web engineering, creative design and hosting solutions since 1995. WebSight Design