Productivedreams.com » web2.0

Announcing the launch of IndoFolio

Gopal Raju — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:33:47 +0000

Good News! I’ve quit my day job to get to do the things I enjoy doing very much on the internet! Yes, that means I’ll be spending more time on ProductiveDreams and taking up freelance projects at the same time. As a first step, I am launching my portfolio – Indofolio.com

In this post I would like to give you a brief overview on IndoFolio and its design.

Why IndoFolio?

I wanted to use a domain name that makes it clear that I am from India and Indo is the most popular prefix used to indicate India. My second requirement was to include “folio” which makes it obvious that this is my portfolio.

Concept behind the design

My name “Gopal” is another manifestation of Krishna who was one of the incarnations/avatars of Lord Vishnu according to Hindu mythology. This inspired me to include other avatars of Lord Vishnu as well. Nothing religious! This was just an attempt to come up with a unique design concept.

Just to let you know, I am a great fan of Russian Art! and was very concerned about achieving an Indo-Russian effect. Though it took me some time playing with Fireworks and Photoshop, I’m happy with the final output.

Softwares Used

The initial draft of IndoFolio was created using Fireworks and was purely vector. Then I took it to photoshop, to burn and dodge a few areas which helped me achieve the “painting” effect. I believe Photoshop gives more control when it comes to burning and dodging.

In the following images, you can compare the Fireworks and Photoshop version of the avatars. I’ve given a one line description about each avatar, for those who are curious

Matsya – The Fish Incarnation is the first one among all.

Kurma- Lord Vishu assumed the form of a tortoise for this avatar.

Krishna (aka Gopal) is considered to be the 8th avatar.

Varaha- The Boar, is one of the interesting incarnations which appeared in order to defeat a demon.

and finallyVamana, the dwarf brahmin.

These are just 5 of the 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu.

Image Optimization

Optimizing the images was a challenge as I had to maintain the image quality. Transparency being a major thing to consider, I had to convert most of the images to 24bit PNGs. I used some online image optimizers like PNGCrush to reduce the file size.

HTML/CSS Development

This was really challenging as my goal was to create a single page website using these avatars. I planned to use JQuery to make the site more lively, different and user friendly. Using JQuery intensely for a single page website is no sin

After doing some research, I decided go ahead with horizontal parallax. For more details about Parallax check out my previous blog post (I created this post while working on IndoFolio).

So that’s it! I would be glad to hear your comments (good or bad) on IndoFolio.

Trend Review: Web2.0 Rockets and Gliders in Webdesign!

Gopal Raju — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:54:41 +0000

Web2.0 rockets and gliders

are visually appealing elements, normally used to indicate speed. Here goes a list of sites that follow this

trend

1. A Pilot

2. Div Voted

3. Drupal Con

4. Get Me Fast

5. iSlayer

6. Jeff Sarmiento

7. Little Kids Bedrooms

8. Rawkes

9. Sopa

10. Mix Online

Trend Review: Coffee Cups in webdesign

Gopal Raju — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:15:26 +0000

Use of Coffee Cups is another interesting trend I noticed recently. Some of them are relevant to the websites’ services while others are not. However, coffee cups are visually appealing and are weaving path to another interesting design trend

1. Wild Zeitung

2. Art Flavours

3. BrandStorm

4. Cofee In Town

5. Design54

6. Ficod 2008

7. Haus Hoyer

8. Icon Icon

9. Jimmyoh

10. Kinoz

11. Lee Munroe

12. Rodney Edwards

13. teh C peng

14. The Piss Biscuit

15. Jwhanif

Trend Review: Clip ‘n’ Paper

Gopal Raju — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:55:36 +0000

When two people use the same style it’s copy, but when many use it’s called a trend. It’s too long since I reviewed a trend. So here it goes – ‘Clip n Paper’. This is another common element that I’ve noticed in many websites. Normally websites with this element look grungy, but there are a few clean sites as well, in the list.

1. Amuki

2. Auchtertool Kirk

3. Blurb

4. Brian Wilkins

5. Concept7

6. Deadfall Camoflage

7. Dreamling

8. DrSoft

9. Eko Udruga

10. Ethem Budak

11. Jeremy Thomas

12. Josh Buckley

13. Sako Karalekian

14. Marco Kuttkat

15. Medics Away

16. Membran Ventile

17. Onskelista

18. Plej

19. Prolong

20. PSD CSS Pro

21. Revolution Driving Tuition

22. Simply Fired

23. Spoon Graphics

24. Team Green Online

25. Totally Her

26. Eton Digital

27. Level9 Design

28. Olly Hite

29. Web Notes

30. Works4Sure

31. Black Wave Creative

32. Shawn Johnston

Trend Review: Price Tags (Part 2)

Gopal Raju — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:58:45 +0000

Thanks for supporting my previous post, on the same topic. I’ve collected another set of Price Tag based designs.

1. Art Flavours

2. Capture The Valley

3. Friml

4. Jayha Fling

5. Gpacheco

6. Planet Web Group

7. Stucel

8.Really Wild Travel

9. Nomiki

10. Hotel Paradiso

11. Piedi Costa

12. Hello

13. Belgrade Jazzfest

14. The CSS Gallery List

15. Bubblesoc

16. Josieg182

17. A Real Guitar

18. Mom Style

19. Naing Media Creation

20. CSS Tricks

Trend Review: Price Tags (Part 1)

Gopal Raju — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:41:11 +0000

Price Tag, another common design element that I’ve seen in many websites. I’ve collected 20 great looking designs with price tags. Enjoy!

1. Adservizimpresa

2. Bcandullo

3. Bigsweaterdesign

4. Blkmtnstudio

5. Davidhellmann

6. Fabricadecaricaturas

7. Fortysevenmedia

8. Fseid

9. Iemai

10. Jameslaicreative

11. Ledzuc

12. Madebyabe

13. Meaganfisher

14. Mootygraphicdesign

15. Nataliejost

16. Seftontransmail

17. Swiths

18. Thecakewalkcary

19. Ushops

20. Wedomarkup

21. Mountain Side Guest House

22. El Rincon De Blablaton

Feel free to suggest any awesome design with price tags

Trend Review: Rainbows

Gopal Raju — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:14:46 +0000

Thanks readers, for your support and comments!! I really love following up on the latest trends. Today, while browsing through some websites, I saw a few which had a common element. Yes, Rainbows! If used carefully, Rainbows can give a cool look and feel to your website. Though I couldn’t find many, I have gathered as much as I could.

But the question remains unanswered. Does the use of Rainbows mark the beginning of a new trend? We can’t confirm until we get to see more similar designs. So please share your link if you find one that is particularly good.

Productivedreams.com » web2.0

Announcing the launch of IndoFolio

Why IndoFolio?

Concept behind the design

Softwares Used

Image Optimization

HTML/CSS Development

RELATED POSTS

Trend Review: Web2.0 Rockets and Gliders in Webdesign!

Web2.0 rockets and gliders

trend

1. A Pilot

2. Div Voted

3. Drupal Con

4. Get Me Fast

5. iSlayer

6. Jeff Sarmiento

7. Little Kids Bedrooms

8. Rawkes

9. Sopa

10. Mix Online

RELATED POSTS

Trend Review: Coffee Cups in webdesign

1. Wild Zeitung

2. Art Flavours

3. BrandStorm

4. Cofee In Town

5. Design54

6. Ficod 2008

7. Haus Hoyer

8. Icon Icon

9. Jimmyoh

10. Kinoz

11. Lee Munroe

12. Rodney Edwards

13. teh C peng

14. The Piss Biscuit

15. Jwhanif

RELATED POSTS

Trend Review: Clip ‘n’ Paper

1. Amuki

2. Auchtertool Kirk

3. Blurb

4. Brian Wilkins

5. Concept7

6. Deadfall Camoflage

7. Dreamling

8. DrSoft

9. Eko Udruga

10. Ethem Budak

11. Jeremy Thomas

12. Josh Buckley

13. Sako Karalekian

14. Marco Kuttkat

15. Medics Away

16. Membran Ventile

17. Onskelista

18. Plej

19. Prolong

20. PSD CSS Pro

21. Revolution Driving Tuition

22. Simply Fired

23. Spoon Graphics

24. Team Green Online

25. Totally Her

26. Eton Digital

27. Level9 Design

28. Olly Hite

29. Web Notes

30. Works4Sure

31. Black Wave Creative

32. Shawn Johnston

RELATED POSTS

Trend Review: Price Tags (Part 2)

1. Art Flavours

2. Capture The Valley

3. Friml

4. Jayha Fling

5. Gpacheco

6. Planet Web Group