Motor Trade Association
Website: mta.org.nz (site has since been redesigned) - view screenshot
Size: 250+ pages
My professional status: employee at Origin Design
Website client: Motor Trade Association
Dates: September - November 2002
Categories: Website designer, Front-end developer, jQuery/JavaScript, Old-school table layout, Flash, Database-driven (pre-CMS), Large sites
Brief: to build the templates required for this large database-driven website, divided into two parts - public and membership-only. To create a Flash animation for the homepage.
My responsibilities included:
- Building the large number of templates required for this large site, and ensuring that they met the needs of the programmers at Outwide - HTML, DHTML, graphics, JavaScript, CSS
- Liaising with the Outwide programmers to ensure that all the elements required had been built and delivered
- Developing the Photoshop master templates for a number of the inner pages - following the designer's initial graphics
- Creating a library of characters for the client from initial Freehand drawings by our illustrator, Scott Kennedy
- Creating a Flash animation for the homepage from initial sketches by the designer. I used Scott Kennedy's characters and worked out the timing and details myself in Flash. Just for fun I added sound to the animation (sourcing the sound files from online collections), the audio version is available offline.
I loved doing the Flash animation - such fun - and this was one of the first where I was able to use sound as well. A complex site, with many templates, and two completely separate parts - public and members-only. It was great to be able to design and develop many of the pages myself, following the designer's look and feel.