posts by steve

Big K.R.I.T. Site

Yesterday we relaunched the official site for Mississippi rapper Big K.R.I.T.

This was the first project in a new partnership between Fishbucket and Cinematic Music Group. We’re planning to do some ongoing work together; revamping the sites in their current lineup and putting together some new ones. Stay tuned!

Bishfucket

Are you a fan of Fishbucket, but always hated that it’s not backwards? Well, you’re in luck! Introducing Bishfucket.com, the Internet’s #1 Backwards Fishbucket site.

(Offer only valid for users with modern browsers. Actual backwardness may vary.)

Happy holidays from Fishbucket and Bishfucket!

New BBC Ice Cream Web Store

Just two days short of its six-year anniversary, the BBC ICECREAM web store relaunched today. It’s based on a different e-commerce system, and we went with a cleaner and more streamlined design this time. (Which is obvious if you recall the previous version!)



Also worth noting: Things move! Without Flash! I still like Flash and hope it doesn’t die off completely, but it’s been good to try out some alternatives so I can make things move without relying on it. (Only in the most recent non-IE browsers, of course.)

Big thanks to Loic Villepontoux. I’ve been working with him for about a decade now, and his art direction and instincts are always on point. (Thanks to Phillip and Mimi and Chief too!)

October Launches: Buddy, Violette, Rens

Sometimes there are so many fish swimming around in the bucket at once, it’s hard to find a minute to announce when one of them grows up and is released to the world. (Huh?)

October saw three different sites launch. One of these days they may just make an appearance in the portfolio, but in the meantime here’s an overview…

Buddy

This is a single-page site for Pharrell’s new protégé, Buddy. It had a quick turnaround time, but luckily we had some great photography to work with. This one has a liquid design* and can work at various window sizes.

*Not related to Liquid Design, the company where this writer started his web design career in the late 90s.

Violette New York

A remade site for Vashtie’s clothing line, Violette. It’s always a pleasure working with Vashtie. I’d like to think it’s because we both grew up in the Capital District and can relate to each other on a 518 level, but it’s probably because she’s generally a great person to work with. She wanted to go simple and use a lot of black & white for this one, so we worked in some desaturation magic and kept everything smooth and slick.

The shop uses Big Cartel, which I’d been looking forward to using for a while. I was pleasantly surprised, it was very easy to work with.

The Rens

This was a quick site, (still in progress,) for an NYC youth basketball league, The New Renaissance. This site is currently just a quick overview of this new program, and will grow in the near future to show more about the teams.

The client requested an auto-playing Flash intro, complete with audio. (classic!) So be warned before you click, there may be a loud burst of Jay-Z.

Note: Parts of this site are based on an excellent theme by MKNY Studio.

Sweet Sixteen

I mentioned this on twitter earlier, but — Sixteen years ago today, I launched my first website. The homepage (I’m sorry, funky homepage,) still exists. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t set aside the first version of the other pages, but this gives a pretty good idea of the high caliber of web design I was working with at the time.


(Best viewed in Netscape 1.1)

From the cutting room floor: N*E*R*D cartridges

Fans of the 2009 N*E*R*D site should recall the large cartridge that the crowd held up on the intro page. Well, that was actually just one of many different fake cartridges that I created. Here’s the story of a concept that didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the site so it wasn’t used.

Back in December 2008, I was brought onboard to redo the official site for N*E*R*D. Another company had been working on it, but the band wasn’t happy with the direction they were going in. I was soon on a call with Pharrell, who was detailing his concepts for the new site: an old-school Atari theme.

This got some wheels churning. As luck would have it, a friend I’ve known since 3rd grade is a big Atari fan and has a pretty large collection. We arranged for him to send me a package of games, controllers and a system. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d do with them, but hoped that the gear would spark some ideas.

And they did! I love those old, classic cartridges. The labels, the graphics, the way they were all worn down from years of use and abuse. I didn’t have an Atari growing up, (we were a Commodore family,) but it took me back.

I then looked to the album artwork, which also had great illustrations:

My next step seemed obvious…
Continue Reading →

GilbertArenas.com: Webby Awards Official Honoree

I got the news last night that the Gilbert Arenas site has been selected as an Official Honoree for the 2011 Webby Awards! After hearing that, I picked up my nearest internet device and looked up “Webby Awards Honoree” because I didn’t know what that meant. Sounds like a good thing though:

Of the over 8000 entries submitted to the 15th Annual Webby Awards, fewer than 15% were distinguished as an Official Honoree.

So – cool! This was one of the ten selections in the Celebrity/Fan category, alongside Asher Roth, Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse AND the Rockettes. Thanks to Paisley Benaza at Dossier, it’s been a pleasure working with her for the past few years and I look forward to many more!

Pharrell is changing the game.

Pharrell released a new track today, hit the BBC Blog to hear it. This track is accompanied by a little animation I put together, with art direction from F.luxury.B. Check it! Tron style!


Tumblrizing

I announced this on twitter a few weeks ago but hadn’t officially mentioned here yet, but I’ve been using the tumblr lately. Apparently I signed up for an account about three years ago and completely forgot about it. A few weeks back I was talking to Brian Raftery about tumblr, saying things like “I don’t get it!” and “it doesn’t make any sense?” I just couldn’t figure out why someone would want to use this closed-off half-blog system if they have a real blog at their disposal.

Then I started to understand, where a blog post should have a title and a point, a tumblr is less formal and more random. (aha! steve catches up to 2008.) So I started pulling some things out of the archives, lining up some assorted nonsense, and somehow I’m already up to 80 posts. Take a look! You’ll also see recent images from there in the new sidebar on the bottom right of this here blog page.

http://fishbucket.tumblr.com

Fishbucket Flashback: Vanessa Hudgens (2006)

I noticed on twitter the other night (from my man Mikey) that Vanessa Hudgens was back in the news. I won’t comment on why her name came up, but it reminded me “hey, I made her website once!”

In 2005-2007 I did a lot of work for Hollywood Records, which included a bunch of websites for teen pop acts. Most of those projects haven’t made it into the new portfolio yet, but I figured it was a good time to dig this one up.

It was an all-Flash site, and was her official site for about two years. Best of luck to Vanessa!