This was a website for a previous client of mine called Sandy Raidy. Sandy is a talented seamstress who makes historical reenactment costumes and she approached me about getting a website designed and coded to be able to display her reenactment costumes that she makes by hand.
After consulting with Sandy about what pages were needed on the site, I began the design process by working out a colour and pattern library. I used old tapestries and other historical items as reference points on how the website should look and feel. The design and colour scheme took quite a while to get right but by the end both of us were happy with the outcome.
Choosing the correct typeface for the website was next, and after carefully picking through numerous options, I ended up going with Elena. From its conception, Elena was designed to serve two basic typesetting functions: text for continuous reading and display work of moderate size. This meant it was perfect for the website and could serve multiple functions as both headline and body copy.
With the colours, patterns and typeface sorted, I was able to move on to working up some layouts and high resolution photoshop visuals for Sandy. Once these had been approved, I moved on to the development and coding phase. I created a beta version of the site on a private server so that Sandy and I could both keep track of it as it was being built which allowed for fast paced feedback as and where necessary. When it had been bug-tested and checked for cross-browser compatibility, I moved it over to a live server for all the world to see.
