« My Unusual Work Life  •   Main   •  The Right Tool For The Job »

April 30, 2005

PocketGoddess Reborn

On Friday, my friend and fellow Palm OS User Council member Jen Edwards had a small wish come true — she saw her PocketGoddess website reborn! It was revamped with a new look and a new Movable Type system to make her writing and publishing much easier. I'm most pleased because this refresh will allow Jen to enjoy writing, instead of fighting with a manual, cobbled together system.

I was fortunate to help her out with this transformation, thanks to my good buddy Michael Ashby. He asked me to be involved in developing a logo for Jen and setting direction on the design, so he could focus on the technical stuff of Movable Type and building HTML and CSS templates.

The logo started as all of my logo work does, in my Miquelrius sketchbook. I had a chat with Jen about her wants and needs, then began drawing ideas out of her comments and my ideas for her identity. I wanted mainly to provide a more refined look for Pocket Goddess, something that would represent Jen's personality but also have a classic, professional feel.

Through the sketching process, we both centered on a simple goddess icon, and I explored type and sharpening up the icon itself. From this process I chose two fonts (Gill Sans & Spring Script). For the final stage, Jen and I discussed color, and I learned she dearly loved blues and greens. So, finding the right blues and greens became the task. I preferred a “leafy” green color, though I did explore a blue green option. In the end, the leafier green won out.

Once the logo was determined, I spoke to Michael Ashby about his structural plans for the site. He was setting up multiple Movable Type weblogs for Jen to use, so she could manage all of the news, reviews and other content of her site in a more effective way than her current mostly-manual system.

Michael simply wanted a main page design comp from which he could spin the rest of the site. So, I provided Mike with a quick layout and some graphics, which he turned into templates and eventually, the entire site. Michael put a much more significant amount of effort into his end of the project, making sure every detail was handled, right down to the sub-categories, font formatting and browser testing. Michael spent many hours getting this site up to his high specifications.

I'm very proud of the look and feel and the teamwork we enjoyed during the project. Jen might say it took too long (she was excited the whole way through and both Michael and I worked on the project on our evening and weekends) but I would bet she'd now say that it was well worth the wait. :-)

My thanks to Jen for the opportunity and for Michael's hard work bringing the PocketGoddess site to life for Jen. You guys rock!

April 30, 2005 8:27 AM | Logos | add to del.icio.us

Comments

The new design looks great. Almost like MTV's Pimp my ride. Did you win a Pimp my site contest? Keep up the great reviews!

OrionNE

Posted by: OrionNE at May 1, 2005 9:43 AM

Hi Mike

What software did you use to create the 'goddess' element of the logo?

Thanks

Posted by: David Hughes at May 2, 2005 12:37 PM

David, I used Adobe Illustrator 10. Drew the left half, then reflected the half to make the silhouette.

Posted by: Mike Rohde at May 2, 2005 1:56 PM

Nice article Mike. Thanks for the kind words. It was a lot of fun working with you on this project. I hope we can do it again soon!

Posted by: mashby at May 2, 2005 2:02 PM

Woo hoo! TypeKey now works on the blog. :-)

Posted by: Mike Rohde at May 2, 2005 2:02 PM

Another great design, Mike. I do like your design work, and I love reading about your approach to the design process. The new Pocket Goddess site is a huge improvement on the old one.

Posted by: Neal at May 4, 2005 8:07 AM

Thanks Neal, those kind word really do make my day!

I think as much as I'm pleased with Jen's new look, I'm even more deeply pleased at how excited Jen has become about her own site. Our guess as to how it would positively effect her were right -- she's thrilled and you can see it in her posting regularity already. That *really* makes my day. :-)

Posted by: Mike Rohde at May 4, 2005 4:47 PM