VICS event (2004) - microsite design

Designed and built site from a single Word doc as reference.

Published:
Approximate read time:
2 minutes
Topics:
frontend, work, poly

First time designing

Challenge Accepted meme, picture of stick figure squinting with arms folded over each other
Me? Design? Challenge Accepted.

Poly Webteam members had the highest pay on campus (by like $2/hr) because our boss… was a total boss. He had connections, could reboot your work study at the snap of a finger, and would get contracted work partnering with external neighboring organizations like the MTA. This case was quite shy of such a glorious venture but a good experience nevertheless. A motivated professor gave us the opportunity to create a microsite where people could pay to register for an upcoming event. My good friend and colleague Anthony Piris handled the client, backend, and payment gateway portions of the project (sorry, and thank you!). As for me? The client only had 1 Word document to offer, and I had to plan and design the site from that alone. I knew I had an eye for design but wasn’t sure if I could actually design a site on my own.

Screenshot of the event Word doc provided by client
Client: “Here’s a Word doc. Make site.”
Screenshot of VICS event microsite Agenda page
Me: “I got you.” :: keyboard drop ::

I reused the colors, type, and logos available in the Word doc to create this straightforward design that stayed true to both Poly’s and VICS’ brands.

Actual static pages from 2004

I actually found a backup of the static pages, you can view the Main, About, and Agenda pages here: VICS event microsite. The Agenda page uses one <table> for the time versus activity columns, while the activity columns use definition lists, not nested tables for layout. Despite the site’s simplicity, I still leveraged hacks, you’ll find these \ in several declaration keys in the styles.css (or view source in GitHub).

Diving into design

This project ignited in me the need to know what makes for good design and kept me curious if I could ever transition from web development into web design. Possessed with intrigue, I went on to consume books on graphic design, color, typography, and grid systems. I would later be consulted on design-related matters such as for Poly’s 150th year celebration DVD for both media within and improving the print on the DVD itself, 3-dimensional layout of the Poly presidential gallery, and was commissioned for work on a poster for the proposed trancontinental maglev road.