Company Profile

I've been given a large hint from Buck in his latest blog post to write an in-depth post on the new Plexus Web site. Since I designed and fathered the new site, I'll discuss the changes that we have made.

The main idea that both I and the Plexus team wanted to focus on was to make our new site be more visually appealing to viewers. While text is extremely important for Search Engine Optimization, I wanted to balance it out with more images that show what Plexus' capabilities are. As the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words".

The first thing you'll notice when arriving at the Plexus home page, is the revamped navigation and logo placement. As you begin to scroll through the page, you'll also notice that the navigation stays fixed to the top of the page. There's really no good explanation for why the navigation stays at the top of the page, we just thought it looked cool. Just kidding, having the navigation scroll along with the page allows for quick navigation access. Below the navigation, you'll find a sneak preview of our portfolio. The preview is a slider script that allows for more interaction with the viewer. It also provides a nice animation giving the site more depth and motion.

Below the sliding portfolio preview is a short introduction. Another new addition is a series of boxes describing other services we provide. Remember, "We build Web sites and MORE..." Hovering over each box changes the color of the box and lights up the information, also adding more interactivity.

Underneath our other services you'll find featured news releases and blog posts from Plexus employees. We've also rearranged our staff profiles to fit into a single row. This proves that we're not just robots working on your site, but actual people, with dreams and emotions.

Moving onto our portfolio page. Once again, with "more visual" in mind, we now have a featured image for each category. This is a function that we control through a site manager (also found in many of our clients' sites) that we created to be able to swap out photos with ease.

Our profile page has also undergone major reconstruction. Our profile landing page serves as your introduction to the Plexus crew, along with a brief overview of it's history. For our group photo, we were going for a grungy, semi-pretentious, rock-n-roll look. Clicking on an employee in the photo serves as a link to their individual profile page.

For the profile page, again, "more visual, MORE VISUAL". You will find updated photos of the Plexus team, each employee photographed against the "Plexus Red" background. Each profile photo has been enlarged so you can get a more up close and personal experience with every employee. Under each profile photo, you can learn more about each employee and read latest thoughts on their blog. The first view of the blog is a shortened preview created to eliminate the amount of scrolling when perusing blog posts.

Each profile contains several staff extras that can be updated and changed through the site manager. These include a site highlight box, flickr photo feed, and favorite links. This provides extra information about each employee, and offers some helpful advice and tools to the viewer.

Our Products and Services pages have been updated with newer photos of our pxComponents. We have taken some outdated services and products off the list and added a few that we now offer to clients.

Our contact page might not look different at first, but it has also been modified to further help potential clients get in touch with us. Upon selecting a subject, a different set of questions pertaining to that topic will appear. This helps the client voice their questions more clearly, and helps us focus on what the clients' needs are.

Congratulations! You're now an official Plexus site expert. Now take all this knowledge you've learned and experience our brand new site for yourself. And although the site might be close to perfect, it is a new site, and therefore might still have a few bugs. If you happen to come across anything that might look odd, please don't hesitate to contact us and let us know.

This is not a joke my friends, but my work has finally been honored in the latest issue of TIME Magazine. As many of you may know, Time is one of the largest publications in the nation and is in news stands all over the country. This kind of recognition might cause me to be inundated with job offers from every designer coast to coast. Sorry Plexus, But I'm makin' it big time now.

If you don't believe my claims, you can see for yourself here. In TIME Magazine's February 11th, 2008 issue, page 35, top-left section of the page, there is a poster visible in the photo. That poster is my winning poster for Focus the Nation that TIME found compelled to include in their latest issue. Sure, it looks like the focus is on the student, but it's pretty obvious that the real focus is my poster (no pun intended).

Now that I've made it in the world of design, Stephanie, I think it's time for that raise.

The new year has began for me, just like it has for many, as a fresh start in life. Myself, along with hundreds of other UGA students have finally reached the goal of graduating before hitting that five year mark. After four and a half years of sitting through hours of class and making meager wages working a part-time job at The UPS Store, I have earned my degree in graphic design. Although many automatically think, "Art degree? What do you do for a job? Draw stuff? Sounds easy." Wrong! Yes, majoring in art does mean that you greatly reduce the amount of tests you take in college, but that doesn't mean it's any less work. And my department definitely didn't make my last semester at UGA easy by any means.

For my graphic design class' final semester, we were required to work on a 4 month long project and present it to our teachers and peers at the end of the semester. The purpose of the project is to give you a more, real-world sense of what graphic design is. In other words, you pick a company, or organization, and treat them like a client. You design their identity, create brochures, booklets, posters and whatever element is needed to make your client look good. All of this also needs to be within a reasonable "budget". So no holographic advertisements projected over the Empire State Building in New York.

For my project, I combined my interest in music with my love of design. I used the name of an existing record label, and without knowing anything about them or what their identity looks like, I created my own designs for my "client". Being in Athens, it's not very difficult to find good bands to use as clients, either. I selected 3 bands, all diverse in their musical style and fan base, and proceeded to design album packaging for each group. My main goal was to create packaging different from the typical jewel case everyone has seen for over a decade. At the same time, thinking of 3 different ways to present new and interesting packaging for each band.

To wrap this mini-bio up, after months of working, and by working, I mean actual effort put forth into making a good project, everything came together in the end. Sleep was scarce during those months for everyone in my class, but everyone was extremely happy after seeing their finished works hung up in a gallery downtown.

You've probably already guessed that my teachers passed me and gave me good marks for my project. Otherwise, I'd still be sitting in class, getting one step closer to falling into the bottle. I can proudly say that I'm now working at the best darn Web site design company in all of Athens. Seriously, I am extremely relieved to have a job right out of college. Before, when I would sit around doing nothing, I wasn't getting paid. Now, I can sit around all day and do nothing, and get paid! Just kidding, Stephanie.

How's everyone doing? Here's my obligatory blog post, probably my first ever. Quite intimidating actually. Let's see what to talk about.... I watched Top Gun for the first time yesterday because I'm tired of getting crap from everyone for not having watched it. Maybe it was the lack of nostalgia, but I couldn't get past the extreme '80s line deliveries and 3 song soundtrack, although I do like rocking out to "Danger Zone". Who doesn't?