A New Web Site For PBDH
February 17, 2005 | 
32 Comments
So, a week or so ago we launched the new Phinney/Bischoff Design House Web site.
While I’ll be the first to say it’s not perfect (what Web site is?) it is definitely a big step forward from the previous site. It took quite a while to get it finished, (isn’t it always when you’re your own client?) and aside from a little poking and prodding, a few ideas and some of the final production, most of the credit for getting it up has to go to my fellow employees, particularly Geoff who designed it and did most of the initial coding.
Now I don’t think this site is particularly ground-breaking, but it’s solid and really works well based on the goals that were laid out for it. We wanted something that showed forward-thinking and easy to update, so we went with a (mostly) CSS-based layout build with standards in mind (no it’s not 100% valid, but it’s close). We also wanted something we could keep fresh, so we put in a Movable Type component that will hopefully enable us to better keep news, articles and events flowing through the site.
Well, I guess I don’t need to get into all the details, so give’r a butchers and feel free to let me know what your impressions are. Overall it’s a pretty big step forward for PBDH in terms of the Web presence and the general attitude towards designing for the Web. It’s also a nice foundation we can build upon. But we’ve still got some work to do! Up next? A PBDH Blog? We’ll see.
Filed under: News
Comments
1. Kevin Fitzpatrick said:
How’s it goin? I took a peak at the design house you created, and I was suprised at how minimal the design was.. but how extremely well executed it seemed to be. I thought it was funny that you created a design house’s site.. and then they created high class sites like Port Seattle.. Cut the middle man, and you should get the big names. hehe.. i’m rambling.. bottom line.. great work. take ‘er easy. ~ kevin
Posted on February 17, 2005 11:47 AM | #
2. Keith said:
Kevin – No middle man here, the same folks created both sites. I’m just (a rather small) part of the team. But I’m glad you liked the work.
Posted on February 17, 2005 11:59 AM | #
3. Kim Siever said:
Nice job. We are redoing the Faculty of Management website this summer, and your design gave me some ideas to consider for my sixth mockup. :)
Posted on February 17, 2005 12:11 PM | #
4. Mike P. said:
I like it, always been a fan of presentational sites that swap header sizes like that…
One question: Why do most of of the ID’s (in the CSS) have an element assigned to them? I suppose I could see that helping to remember just wt* an ID was for - a page switch (body ID) or some other thing… Nice, I like that…
(huh - two sentences that end with ‘like that’… Three!!)
Posted on February 17, 2005 12:26 PM | #
5. Kyle said:
I’m not particularly fond of the backpages myself (mostly with the big empty space between header/content.
But… hey, it’s always fun to redo an internal site! My work has been on the redesign bandwagon for the past 2 weeks hardcore… should be out soon, and once it is it’ll be a giant relief to me :) Can’t wait to see this baby out the door!
Posted on February 17, 2005 12:29 PM | #
6. Zelnox said:
I think it looks nice and clean. Somehow, it reminds me of someone’ site. ^_^
Posted on February 17, 2005 12:42 PM | #
7. Keith said:
Mike – I’m not actually sure it serve much purpose other than like you said, for identification, but I may be wrong. For the record I didn’t do too much of the CSS implementation on this one. It does single out an particular element and ID a bit more. I don’t usually do that, but there are some benefits.
Kyle – I assume the empty space your referring to is on the portfolio pages? I don’t like it either, but when designing for the Web you need to be flexible. Due to the nature of our portfolio images we need a large space. We also chose Flash to display those so that we can better showcase them and limit the total amount of scroll. As you can imagine, there was lots of discussion about how best to do this.
Zelnox – Who’s could that be, I wonder?
Posted on February 17, 2005 12:49 PM | #
8. Jeff Croft said:
Keith-
I’m not sure exactly what part of the site you were most involved in, but I really, really like the visual design! Nice job!
Posted on February 17, 2005 01:08 PM | #
9. Keith said:
Jeff – Geoff is responsible for most of the visual stuff (he does great work) but I’ve got little bits (mostly ideas he took and made better) in here and there. As well, there was input from the other designers here also. It was really a team effort, and yeah, I like it too.
Posted on February 17, 2005 01:15 PM | #
10. Dave P said:
This is really nice Kieth. Very well done… the shrinking headers threw me off a little… I thought the scrollbar was busted when I couldn’t move up!
I love the way you guys profile your employees…on the old site and the new… really well done.
So, what exactly is euro-football anyways? :-)
Posted on February 17, 2005 01:30 PM | #
11. John Zeratsky said:
I was poking around at the PBDH site a while ago, but didn’t realize that it was new. I must’ve caught it right after the launch.
Anyway, I thought it was beautiful then and still do. Particularly great use of images across the top of every page. Is there an archived copy of the old site online somewhere?
Posted on February 17, 2005 01:34 PM | #
12. Mike D. said:
Nice. The site is sharp and very professional. Well done Keith and everyone at PBDH!
Keith’s profile page is pretty nice as well, except I couldn’t make out the writing on his notepad behind him so I enhanced the photo using an advanced precision interpolation technique I learned while at NASA. The enhanced photo can be seen here.
Posted on February 17, 2005 01:38 PM | #
13. Kevin Tamura said:
I was poking around the redesign last week and was wondering when you were going to post something. Very nice and clean–congrats all around.
In the portfolio section it would be nice if you could view work by type (web, branding, collateral, ect.) This would make it much easier for me to snoop on what the competition is doing. :-)
Posted on February 17, 2005 01:42 PM | #
14. Keith said:
Thanks everyone.
Mike – That is EXACTLY what it says. I’ve been slacking on the XML books but I do have some new toys.
Posted on February 17, 2005 01:58 PM | #
15. Kyle said:
Kieth>> Actually I was referring to where it say “About Us”, “Our Work” etc. I bothers me that top and bottom aren’t drop shadows, while there is that break there.
BTW, I agree with mike.. more XML. XML has been like a drug for me the past few months…
Posted on February 17, 2005 02:12 PM | #
16. Keith said:
Kyle – It could be a browser display thing…If you get a chance can you send me a screenshot?
Posted on February 17, 2005 02:15 PM | #
17. Scott said:
Quick question, was it designed with 1024 x 768 resolution in mind as the minimum? At 800 x 600 a bottom scroll bar appears in Firefox. What is the minimum target resolution nowadays?
Posted on February 17, 2005 02:20 PM | #
18. Kyle said:
No, it’s most definately on purpose :) The header goes straight up to the top of the page (no drop shadow), the heading for the section is like “cut” between the header and hte body background (where it displays on the blue), and the bottom footer just doesn’t have a bottom drop shadow (also, one of my peeves).
Because there’s a bottom drop shadow to the header (where the cut is), and a top drop shadow to the content (again), and no corresponding dropshadows on both ends, it kind of bothers me…
Posted on February 17, 2005 02:57 PM | #
19. Keith said:
Scott - It was designed for 800 x 600. We’ll be looking into that, hopefully it’s just a quick tweak of the CSS to lose that scroll bar. We just pulled up the latest stats and 800 x 600 is around 34% – not enough to ditch it by any means.
But this gets me thinking…My personal redesign is moving forward and some of the things I want to do would be much easier if I were to target 1024 x 768. Conisdering my primary audience I might be able to get away with it, but….not sure if I want to do that just yet.
Posted on February 17, 2005 03:20 PM | #
20. Scott said:
It does make it tricky, especially if wide images are used for banners etc. I like what Dan did with the fixed and fluid options for his layout.
Posted on February 17, 2005 03:36 PM | #
21. Lea said:
I personally think it looks great. Classy and simple design, and I like how the information is presented. I am charmed by the About > People moving photos.
Although, I was disconcerted when the black BG from the home page turned dark green in the other pages, and the differing header sizes in the About pages, vs. other internal pages vs. the huge front page photo.
Posted on February 17, 2005 03:41 PM | #
22. Keith said:
Lea – Those photos are fun huh? As far as the disconcerted-nees goes, I guess that’s one of the challenges of Web design. We wanted to bring the content further up on the interior pages, thus the shorter header, and I’m guessing your not on a Mac?
The homepage background is actually a dark burgundy and the interior a grey/blue…at least that’s how they’re intended. ;)
Posted on February 17, 2005 03:52 PM | #
23. Zelnox said:
Keith - Hehe, the white middle with soft shadows on the side reminds me of Mike Davidson’ site. Funny, but I see that and I think of him. ^_^
Posted on February 17, 2005 08:38 PM | #
24. Mike D. said:
Zelnox: Funny you should mention that, as I just had the “white canvas/soft shadows” look officially copyrighted this week.
PBDH: You will be hearing from my lawyers tomorrow. I do accept hush money however, as well as hush PowerMacs.
Posted on February 17, 2005 10:37 PM | #
25. Keith said:
Funny thing is, this site was designed before Mike’s site went live (it’s true!) so…maybe he owes Geoff some hush money…
All that aside, I’ve been working on my new site and doing all sorts of surfing and reading and looking for inspiration and well…
It’s been hard. It seems like every “original” idea have has already been done. A few times. It’s all over the place…not just the Web. True originality is hard–really, really hard. That’s why I identified with Cameron’s Nodes of Design Inspiration so much.
I think in a day and age of mass communication and such easy access to so many creative ideas it’s much more important to be good than original.
But it’s frustrating.
Posted on February 17, 2005 11:34 PM | #
26. Keith said:
Oh, one more thing – when it comes to Web sites, I think originality can be achieved through content (text, photos, art etc.) a bit easier than visually much of the time.
Posted on February 17, 2005 11:37 PM | #
27. patrick h. lauke said:
lovely, clean and to the point. like it.
Posted on February 18, 2005 08:20 AM | #
28. Ted said:
It’s a beautiful site and I’m always a fan of large images.
I’ve got a question for you. Was it designed on a Mac? The bold headings look clunky on my pc. On my screen, the letters are crammed together and don’t share the open feeling of the site’s visuals.
I’m using win 2000/ff/17” dell/1024 X 768.
I thought maybe that was due to designing on a mac with great text rendering.
Posted on February 18, 2005 08:48 AM | #
29. octavio said:
Great site, congrats to you and the rest of the team.
One quick little detail to fix. On the “Newsletter” page, you are missing a link to the “Mailing Lists”. The other pages within the News section have it so I am assuming it was simply left off?
Posted on February 18, 2005 09:46 AM | #
30. Keith said:
Ted – It was designed on a Mac. We tested on a PC for fuctionality but we still need to make some refinements there…I’ll look into that, thanks for the feedback.
octavio – We actually only have that on our individual news pages. We have details like that yet to tackle…thanks for the observation, it’s helpful.
Posted on February 18, 2005 11:14 AM | #
31. Timo said:
Great Job it looks fantastic. I was a little thrown off at first with the picture of the house…but then I realized that it is the office. Very creative site I like the layout!
Posted on February 18, 2005 01:43 PM | #
32. Jens Wedin said:
Really beautiful design, I’ll like it a lot. The frontpage / contentpage layout is really clever and nice.
Posted on February 28, 2005 12:59 AM | #
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