Portfolio
Monarch Digital
Disclaimer: May have changed.
Within a few months of joining Monarch Digital as a designer, I was heavily involved in the redesign of its website. In late 2008, following DrupalCamp Colorado 2008 (sponsored in part by Monarch), then-technical director Matt Tucker and I undertook another redesign that encompassed both the studio’s site and its brand.
Monarch’s new site is the one of the only designs I have conceived that was not founded upon a comp produced in Adobe Photoshop. Matt and I elected to put 37signals’ assertion about the hindrance to design represented by Photoshop to the test. Initial designs were committed to paper, and iterations of the site never saw Photoshop.
Both the website, with its textural enhancement, and the logo were instant hits among our clients and visitors.
In 2009, Jozef Toth of CivicActions featured the redesign in his blog article “70 beautiful Drupal sites,” a sure sign that experimentation works.
In crafting Monarch’s new identity, I created dozens of possible iterations from which the “beach ball” won out. Other designs included peaks in the shape of an M and assorted Colorado-related themes.