With a better grasp of web design under my belt, the creation of Version 2 allowed me to focus more on the creative aspects of web design rather than constantly fighting with HTML. Version 2 was introduced on March 07, 2002 sporting the fresh and new Aqua look. Clearly inspired by Apple’s Mac OS X, the site looked much more polished and refined than the previous release.

Why Do It?
So why spend the time (and believe me, it was a LOT of time) to design a Version 2 when Version 1 was working fine? Although I was fairly happy with the Version 1 site right after it was completed, as time went on I began to find it more and more, well, cheap looking. I felt that I could make it look much more polished and refined.

In addition, there were certain elements of the site that I didn’t like. For example, the Home page was always static - it simply had a little "Welcome" message on it that never changed. The What’s New? section had to be accessed through a separate link. I felt that it would be much more effective if the Home page contained the What’s New? stuff in it. With the new RohJuh.com, visitors can see at a glance from the Home page what’s new on the site as well as the Featured Adventure.

Of course, likely the primary driving factor for the new design is simply my interest in web design. I wanted to use what I learned from Version 1, couple it with some new stuff, and see what I could do. I got a really bad flu while in Banff and it stayed with me for nearly two weeks. During that time, I was too weak to do much so that’s when I began work on Version 2 of RohJuh.com. This is the end result!

The Inspiration for Version 2.0
So I decided I wanted to revamp RohJuh.com. That’s the easy part. Now what was it to look like? Not that it’s not blatantly obvious, but credit has to be given where credit is due. The fundamental look of the new RohJuh.com is clearly inspired by Apple’s Mac OS X and its Aqua interface. In fact, if you visit Apple’s website, you’ll probably notice that the "folder tabs" along the top look pretty similar. I actually took the images from there and modified them for RohJuh.com.

I really wanted to create a cool RohJuh.com “logo”, complete with the glossy Aqua look. I hoped for an easy solution in which somebody on the net had already created a font like that. Unfortunately, that was not the case (if you know of one, please, please let me know!). I found a really good tutorial on the web describing how to create Aqua buttons which could probably be applied to created Aqua text, but it involved Photoshop which I don’t have. Although I do have access to Photoshop at work, I was just too lazy to go through with the hassle.

So the RohJuh.com "logo" is not quite as cool as it could be, but it still complements the look of the website well, IMO. Maybe an Aqua-fied RohJuh.com logo will be my next project.

Update March 07, 2002
I have been able to find a great piece of shareware called Aquatint that does exactly what I want it to do. You can pretty much give an Aqua look to nearly any image you want. So the RohJuh.com "logo" is now Aqua-fied! Below, you can see what it looked like before. It didn’t look bad, but the Aqua look is definitely better! (click on image to see larger version)

Design of the Site
I knew I wanted the Aqua "look", but still had to create an overall layout for the site. I experimented with a few different layouts and finally decided on the layout you now see. I felt it was the most simple and aesthetically pleasing design out of the ones I was considering.

I had a better handle on website design after doing Version 1, but nevertheless went through some more frustration. Netscape 4.7 was once again a primary culprit. It simply did not want to render the Navigation Bar (at the top of every page) correctly.

The problem was only with the Windows version as the Mac version was OK. I spent hours trying to troubleshoot, but to no avail. There were various articles on the internet that indicated that this browser had poor web standards compliance and I figured that that’s what I was seeing here. In the end, I pretty much gave up and put a disclaimer that RohJuh.com won’t work properly with Netscape 4.7. There are much better browsers available anyway for free.

Unless you’ve actually done it, it’s difficult to convey how much time and effort goes into designing a web site and getting it to look "just right". You mess with layouts, column spacing, different fonts, font sizing, font color, image sizing, image placement . . . a whole bunch of things. Oftentimes, you decide on a particular design, create a bunch of pages, and then realize that something else will work much better. You then scrap the original design and all the pages based on that design and implement the new one.

Finding all the various gifs and jpegs you want to sprinkle throughout the site is harder than it appears. Even after finding them, you then need to crop them to the right size and add the desired effects. And if you can’t find the image you want, you need to create it yourself.

The casual observer will only notice that things look good. However, it’s the subtle things and attention to detail that elevates something from looking OK to looking good. These little things take an inversely proportional bit of work. An example of this is the shadow effects of the windows on the Splash page. In addition to all the images, the Testimonials page and the banner "advertisements" also took a good deal of time and effort to create.

Fortunately, I like doing this stuff. It’s nice to be able to sit back after it’s all done and appreciate the fruits of all your labor. For me, the time involved was well worth it. I hope you like the site as much as I do!

You can still peruse Version 2.0.

Screenshot of Version 2.0: Tasty Aqua interface, improved layout, and a more consistent look throughout the site.

Posted by Roger at 7:21 pm.