When I originally signed up for the May 1st Reboot, I actually didn’t expect to hit the date at all. The main reason was that I had something specific in my head, and I’d been out of the Flash loop for around a year, so I’d missed the boat on several clean advancements, and an overall spike in open source fla files floating around the internet to be modified and used.

Alas the more I looked at online portfolios the more I started to realise something. The only portfolios I’d actually stick around and have a look at were those that didn’t waste my time. Unless they were exceptionally fantastic in functionality, I generally have a couple of clicks and I’m outta there. So in designing Emmortel I actually decided to bring the content front and centre.

Is the actual site anything like what I had in mind? No, I’m not good enough for my ideas yet. It’s like that with any creative media. You must know your limitations. What you should however do is to always strive to MEET that vision; of course by that stage your ideas have grown even more, but at least there’s a constant state of evolution.

The problem is I’ve been so heavily into the actual web development side of things, my illustrations have been sparser in numbers lately. That is going to change from now on, with only one redesign looming on the horizon; that being for Broken Kode’s One Year Anniversary. Version 3 was an eye opener. It helped me understand how to make a theme do EXACTLY what you want it to. I thoroughly enjoyed the CSS design process of Emmortel and will constantly tweak for sure, but it’s the first step that’s always the hardest. Going from nothing to something you can build upon and expand all begins with that all important first step.

Then of course there’s the whole debate of CSS Reboot versus May 1st Reboot. One being traditionally aimed towards Flash (May 1st Reboot), the other being well for CSS. The funny thing is that Emmortel currently will be using the following languages, PHP, CSS, XHTML, XML and Flash.

There’s a good post over at Keith Robinson’s website about the stylistic differences between the two initiatives. I don’t agree with everything he’s written there.

He doesn’t like the rollover effects in the May 1st Reboot site, because they’re unneccesary. I think those little things add an element of fun to the whole design. Not everything has to be there for a reason. As designers you put something because it’s fun looks good or whatever, binds the page together, thus enhancing your experience.

I’m excited to release it as I’ve been siting on the design for a month now, and I’ve got itchy fingers to just press and have it running (it’s got a WordPress backend, so it’ll go live with the simple change of a theme :) ).

I will voice my one pet peeve that not everyone is actually adhering to the goddamn guidelines. I went through like 20 random links on that website to see if everyone had the image holder, alas of the 20 I got 1 person, ah whatever, time to get drawing again.