After a soft launch on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ yesterday, I am now ready to share with you the new JUST™ Creative responsive web site.
Feel free to explore and let me know your thoughts. Below is a quick outline of some of the features found throughout the site.
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Website Info & Features
- Built using WordPress and the Skeleton Boilerplate
- Web fonts (Proxima Nova and Droid Serif) served by Typekit
- Hosting by Media Temple
- Responsive design with 5 viewport sizes (resize your browser to see this in action). Features Retina Display optimised images.
- Custom designed by myself in Photoshop & Illustrator, using the 960 Grid System
- Developed by Dan Rose with HTML5 and CSS3 (Hoodie Framework). Portfolio functionality from Reaction (Brandon Jones), developed in part by Craig Waterman.
- Filterable gallery portfolio with multiple layouts (see icons on right of portfolio page)
- Logo rollover over effects on main navigation
- Dynamic drop down photo which reveals my bio (in sidebar on article pages)
- Dynamic ‘To Top’ button to easily get to the top of the page, displayed when needed
- jQuery vertical accordion menu for the mobile drop down menu navigation
- jQuery / CSS article sidebar for easy navigating
- jQuery transition slide effects
- Responsive ads so they are displayed on all view ports
- Hidden pull down menu to view recent work and more (Find it?)
- Threaded comments on new posts
- Highlighted author comments
- Hidden track backs / backlinks that you can reveal
- Google Custom Site Search for accurate and quick searching
- prettyPhoto integration for showing photos in a Lightbox
- Large footer that can you can hide or show depending on your preference
Still To Do
Add a dynamic slider on the home page (will also work with touch gestures)- Add more portfolio items
- Fix speed problems across the server. (Having troubles with this, as I believe it is related to memory / apache – something I am not well versed in).
Fix bugs as they are found
Bugs / Suggestions / Feedback
If you find anything that looks out of place, or have a suggestion please do let me know. Please note your browser and it’s version when sending, thank you!
Hey Jacob, congrats for the redesign.
I think it would be nice if you made de little “Just sensational” flag roll over with the page, so that hidden-header could be always available to the user.
Hi Calil,
Thank you! Not quite sure what you mean by a ‘flag rollover with the page’? Can you explain a little bit more, thank you!
I think Calil meant that the “just spectacular” menu button should be fixed on top of the page when scrolling down.
Nice redesign btw! Love your rollover idea with the main menu!
Yes Franck, that’s it!
At the top of the page there is a “Just [something]” with a flag. If you click there, you get a header with some info and social media links.
It would be nice to have the flag (only the flag, to follow your minimalist style) scrolling along with the page.
Fresh and exciting to look at. Also strong functionality. Great work, Jacob!
Great new site, Jacob! 🙂
As mentioned on Facebook yesterday, I love the new site design Jacob. It’s very clean and flexible. Currently, I’m still learning some jQuery and I might even add that to my site. Looking forward to all good things coming.
P.S. Nice choice of font! I’m also using Proxima Nova on my site & branding, for a few months now, regular & semibold. It’s one of my favorites and looks great. Now that I think of it, it does look like your new wordmark is using the Proxima Nova typeface, but correct me if I’m wrong. Awesome job on the rebranding.
Cheers Jacob,
-Jamie Wayne
Hi Jamie,
Yeah the logo is using different weights of Proxima Nova and some customisation to the TM and letter R. G’luck with the jQuery!
Hi Jacob…followed your work for the past 3 years and have always referred our new web designers to your site. Though the JCD pencil logo will always be my favorite, the JUST trademark is easy to relate to and dynamic.
Awesome job!
Great layout, very refreshing loving it!
I love the functionality, simplicity and the color combination of the site. 🙂 Great work Jacob!
Jacob,
The site looks great, congrats on the new site. I follow a lot of your work and posts for inspiration.
If I can say about your site though, I don’t know if I am a large fan of the way that your comment boxes decrease in width as the conversation ensues. Much like the first coversation on this post by the time it reached the fourth comment, it was down to two or three words per line, which I thought was a little small.
The rest seemed just great to me, great pop where attention needs to be grabbed and flow where you need it.
Rich
Richard,
Completely agree and this is the first time I am seeing it. Will be fixing this up soon as well as the comment boxes picking up my pink author color.
Franck, Calil,
Ah I see what you mean now. A nice idea but I think it would be too distracting and the text would overlap other text on the page.
PS. So you know, I am in the process of fixing this comment threading styling which is making everything super squishy.
I was replying saying anything like “you should do it” when I just noticed that the footer has the same content as that hidden header.
I guess it’s OK this way, forget about the scrolling flag.
Thanks for you attention and, once again, congrats for the new look =)
ps: yes, I saw the other conversation about comments and I agree that you should take a look at it.
ps2: I liked the older pencil logo as well =)
“View full Portfolio” link in “just sensational” drop-down doesn’t work. Otherwise, really nice update.
Thanks Nick, updated this.
I must admit that I had a soft spot for your old pencil logo, but damn this rebranding is just brilliant, Mr. Cass. No pun intended.
Hey Jacob,
First of all, I think this is a solid job. Very nice. As far as suggestions I have a couple
1) You mention speed. You need to cache your assets, specially if your site is high in traffic. Install W3 Total Cache for WordPress. Follow the instructions and recommendations to do it.
2) Your articles and secondary pages lack a description: this is obviously not good for SEO purposes. I see you have a plug in already, give it a check to make sure your articles can have it too.
3) I would adjust the margins a bit on images, go to your about page. I would have some margins to the left and right (depending on where it’s floated).
That’s all I can see, for now.
Good work!!!
Thank you for the helpful feedback.
1) Will look into installing a caching plug-in after we get the bugs sorted out.
2) Which pages are lacking a description? I updated my SEO plugin and it should be auto? Seems to be there for me now. You?
3) These have been updated. Thanks!
2 is good now. It works solid. Love the site by the way, great job.
Love the new redesign, Jacob! Fresh, modern, glad you kept your branding colors; I knew right away it was your site! Very nice. I also like how you TM’d your phrase, is that for real?
Thanks Sheila, in fact the color has been updated slightly to a brighter pink, but still similar! And yes the trademark is real.
Hey Jacob, I simply love the new look!!!! Best thing about website is its very detailed & interface. It’s amazing. Congratulations 🙂
Love it! Very fresh and the responsiveness is awesome. Great work.
Really nice work Jacob, am sure you’re glad after so much time and work that it’s finally gone live
Love where you’ve taken your brand from JCD to JUST – your refresh looks mint and your identity has come together really well
All the best!
Hi Jacob! Congratulations for your new brand, new redesign and new everything!
Great job!!
Greetings from Caracas
Jacob, New Website looks great. Love the fonts. Congrats.
I love the responsive layouts, and great work in the design! Proxima Nova is ubiquitous. 🙂
Beautiful! I absolutely LOVE your menu rollover effect with the changing words! Great job! Btw, thank you for such a wonderful and informative blog.. it’s one of my faves by far!!
Cheers!
Crystal~
I completely agree with Crystal – this is a very informative blog and definitely one of my favorites. I check in just about every day.
Great job, Jacob! I’ve been enjoying the little teasers you’ve been putting out there for quite some time, and the whole thing is an excellent next step for your identity. Way to go!
Hi Jacob,
I like your website some nice technology used. One thing I have noticed is with the logo. The kerning between the letters is wrong in places?
Hi Jordan, which letters in particular are you talking to?
Jacob, Hi, Sorry I was looking at the Just Launched at the start of this blog half asleep this morning. When I posted I then realised that this wasn’t your logo.
I must say that the logo hover effect is simply brilliant. I like the idea. However, I see that they are 6 different images and there is a slight delay for the first time. Actually, is there any reason for not using css sprite?
Roys,
The delay really depends on your connection speed, if it is slow then it may cause a slight delay. As for the sprite, for ease of use in early development / changing them we have used single images for now. Thanks!
Yeah, probably. My connection is not so fast. Anyways, great work.
And thanks for sharing your knowledge with articles.
Hola Jacob, I love the new website, it is so nice, congratulations great job!! 🙂
Great re-design. The logo over the hover effect is outstanding. Great job with everything.
Hi, Jacob, the redesign of your website is briliant, is interesting that now it looks less like a blog, by the way, why did you changed the old logo to a logotype? Is because it fits with the new brand image? everything is JUST amazing!
Hi Diana,
Thanks and interesting to say it looks less like a blog because the layout it still very much built for and around the content. I changed the logo to fit in with the new look and to make the ‘JUST …’ brand which was best achieved by the logotype. Thanks!
Wow! looks really nice! Good work as always Jacob!
I love the look of the new site, however the new logo seems to have lost the personal touch. There’s nothing unique about it to me where as your previous one had a lot more character to it.
P.S. Nice choice of font! I’m also using Proxima Nova on my site & branding, for a few months now, regular & semibold. It’s one of my favorites and looks great. Now that I think of it, it does look like your new wordmark is using the Proxima Nova typeface, but correct me if I’m wrong. Awesome job on the rebranding.