Interviewed at Mcville.net
21 Nov, 2005
The kind people at Mcville.net asked us to be a part of their Designer Interviews series. Read the interview with JR Ordonez. Other interesting interviews with notable web interaction designers include Jon Hicks, Mark Boulton, Tim Benzinger, and David Hellsing.
Special Site Launch: Billion Dollar Home
16 Nov, 2005
We're proud to announce the Billion Dollar Home, a site we designed and co-founded with an esteemed colleague. It's not just another pay-for-pixel ad site: we will be giving 50% of all pixel revenue to charity, initially focusing on Gulf Coast hurricane victims.
Site Launch: Estate Data
19 Oct, 2005
Estate Data goes live - designed and and built in collaboration with web-marketing firm Eagle River Associates.
Pixel Plain Server Transition
16 July, 2005
Pixel Plain has finished its move to a different server and host. We'd like to express our thanks and gratitude to our former host, No-Place Networks, for 5 years of exceptional service.
Site Launch: Interplayink
05 May, 2005
Introducing Interplayink - portfolio site for Los Angeles print designer Ronald Shapiro. The site uses AJAX to show portfolio details without having to jump back and forth between pages.
Aardvark Firefox Extension
22 April, 2005
The Aardvark Firefox Extension from our friends at Karmatics is now available - branding and design by Pixel Plain.
Some time ago our friend Rob Brown, the genius behind Karmatics and the Aardvark Firefox Extension, approached us with a prototype. We were amazed and found it such a useful web development tool that we designed a one page promotional site around it.
To A New Year!
1 January, 2005
2004 has come and gone. Here's to a new year of design, standards (firefox!) and humanity. Welcome, 2005.
Web Standards Project Cites Epocrates Redesign on Recent Buzz
22 December, 2004
Perhaps the greatest compliment to our work to date, the widely read Web Standards Project (WaSP) Buzz mentions …
“… Pixel Plain's beautiful, valid and elegantly-constructed redesign of Epocrates' web site.” Chris Kaminski, Designer & WaSP Member
WaSP was been a beacon of light for web design during the darker years of browser support for standards. Web designers around the globe owe much of the advancements and compliance of modern browsers to this organization.
CSS Drive Features Four Works
13 December, 2004
CSS resource and inspiration gallery CSS Drive has featured this site as well as three CSS sites designed by Pixel Plain: Casamba, Frontera Films & Shortkid Productions.
“What can I say, just a fabulous, compact layout and design.” CSS Drive
We'd like to thank the folks at CSS Drive for the honors.
Site Redesign: Epocrates, Inc.
18 November, 2004
Pixel Plain's largest undertaking since ezboard, Inc., the Epocrates redesign covers every aspect of web-design »
Site Redesign: BTA International
22 October, 2004
Redesigned and repackaged: BTA International »
Pixel Plain's Receives More Recognition
13 October, 2004
Pixel Plain has again been featured on more CSS design sites; this time at the CSS Vault and Unmatched <style>. We are proud and happy to have held the attention of our discriminating peers.
Memorable:
“A wonderful example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. While the colour scheme, graphics and background image (which really works well) are all strong on their own, the site's overall layout really takes it to another level. The dropshadows work to create a great layered effect that does a masterful job of displaying the content.” Todd Silver, Graphic Designer
Pixel Plain Featured
29 September, 2004
Pixel Plain is featured on CSS Beauty, a design showcase providing its audience "in need of inspiration" with a database of well designed CSS based web sites from around the world.
A memorable review:
“Apart from the smooth design, this site has great structure. We're presented first and foremost with their work - surely the first destination of any prospective client - then once interest is piqued we're logically presented with an info page giving all that extra blurb we expect once we've taken an interest. Finally there's the ubiquitous contact page. It's a simple, logical and extremely well thought out design.” Charles Roper, Communication Designer
27 September, 2004
Pixel Plain awarded for outstanding and inspiring web site design from Plastic Pilots community of designers.
Site Launch: Shortkid Productions
26 September, 2004
Lights, camera, launch: Shortkid Productions »
Site Launch: Nurses On Board
16 September, 2004
Introducing Nurses On Board »
Site Redesign: Frontera Group
17 June, 2004
Frontera Group redesign is now live.
Plains Of Existence
18 May, 2004
The Plain is now Pixel Plain. Pixel Plain is the new and improved front-end and moniker for what was formerly known as “the plain.”
Logo & Type
Along with the new name and domain comes the new logo: the two Ps of Pixel Plain linked to form an infinity band. The original graphic type used for the Ps is called Bauhaus, after a favorite design movement.
The logo typeface uses Gill Sans; the partnering "web safe" title typeface being Century Gothic. The classic Helvetica is used for all paragraph text. Those that don't have these typefaces should see the Helvetica-derived Arial as a substitute.
Navigation & Design: Plain Progression
Pixel Plain's Navigation is there to be quick and simple, revealing all areas while still maintaining the feeling of space. To achieve tangibility, a tab metaphor is used with javascript to show/hide sub-menus without first loading the indexes of each section. Technically, there is no index for each of the three sections: the tabs only represent category names. Finally, Access Keys are provided to help readers with disabilities and general mouse-free navigation.
The layout and design is an evolution of past versions. The idea is to keep it simple and elegant. Like an art gallery, the container, frame or display should never detract from the work at on exhibition. The same is true here. The difference, in this case, is that the container is also an exhibited work.
For posterity, these four snapshots of this site's progression:
It has been a four-year maturation of the plain idea and a concept. The first version was stylistically abandoned for the more austere landscape that pervades later incarnations. The result of the process - part of the process itself - is seen here as Pixel Plain.
Final Notes
As always, the site is coded to W3C Standards and will appear as it should in all modern browsers (IE 5+, Opera 6+, Mozilla, Safari) while the un-styled structured content will appear on other internet devices, such as PDA's. External CSS controls all presentation which allows for layout flexibility as well as ease of maintenance. XHTML 1.0 Transitional is used instead of Strict (used in the previous site) for no other reason than for the purpose of flexibility. After all, business owners and directors are the primary audience for this site, not coders. What is important here is that everything works elegantly, looks good and delivers the content.
Welcome to Pixel Plain.
