Paul Burgess

Bandnamr is a small fun personal project that acts as an open pool of band names and suggestions. You simply enter your name and the band name idea into the form and submit it. The result is a collection of funny, decent and sometimes downright rude band names.

Behind this simple idea was an oppurtunity to practice a technique called ‘ajax’ and to experiment with a website and form left open to the public. After reading the book ‘Bulletproof Ajax‘ I was keen to try out the techniques involved, so when you submit a band name you will see a smooth seemingly instant procedure, rather than the typical scenario of the whole web page refreshing.

I also tried out something known as the ‘honeypot technique’ to protect the site from spam submissions. This involves including a hidden field named ’subject’ which attracts spamming systems, just as bees would be attracted to a honeypot. When the form is submiited it checks to see if ’subject’ has been filled in, if it has, it ignores the submission… so far so good.

» Visit bandnamr.com

Since discovering weheartit.com a week or so ago, I have become mildly addicted to it as a means of getting a quick fix of visual inspiration and stimulation. We Heart It is a collection of images that have been ‘hearted’, in other words bookmarked, by people. You can browse the huge collection of images in one big list, or by user (for example here’s me) or by keyword (for example ‘black and white‘).

Further to my previous Urban Dirty and Songza search plugins, I have created one for We Heart It.

What does it do?

It allows you to search for images on weheartit.com directly from your browser. Type in the keyword/s you are looking for and it will take you directly to the search results on weheartit.com.

You can install it by using the link below. After installation you will see the We Heart It search as an option in your search bar:

» Install ‘We Heart It’ search bar now

This tool is featured on the We Heart It blog. It works for Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox (or any browser that supports OpenSearch).

You can view this and my other search bar submissions on the official MyCroft search engine plugin page

Model Rhéa Nielsen asked me to create a portfolio website for her. It was intended to be as simple as possible, so first thing you see is a slideshow gallery of her photos along with her measurements, the info an agency or photographer would need straight away.

The gallery slideshow is controlled from Rhéa’s private Flickr account so she can add, delete and rearrange photos very easily. She also asked for an online journal as a diary for her travels, so I customised a Wordpress blog for her to fit seamlessly into the site.

» Visit rheanielsen.com

Heavy Artillery are a graffiti crew made up of some of the very best artists in the game. (The guys behind the famous and much photographed Kensington Street graffiti here in Brighton). As a huge fan of their work, I was particularly proud to be asked to design and build their website. The general brief was that it shouldn’t look like a graffiti site, more like an abandoned circus. The design concept that was used contains photographic elements of torn posters, tatty wood and circus style fonts, and is intentionally a bit awkward in appearance.

The site is updateable by everyone in the crew, I included a fully customised Wordpress blog, integrated Flickr photo gallery and RSS feeds.

» Visit heavyartillerycrew.com

Their title says it all, “Couture, handmade and vintage inspired lingerie, bedwear and dressing up for lovely ladies”. Ophelia Fancy had a strong identity and brand, but their old website was lucklustre to say the least. I was tasked with creating a new site which would enable them to showcase their work & collections and give them a strong web presence.

I created an bespoke online shop, which uses a ‘tagging’ system which allows people to find items by keywords. For example you can look for corsets or knickers, browse by colour like red or black, even by a word like sparkle. This gives Ophelia Fancy control over how their products can be sorted, and offers the user a great way to find what they are looking for.

The site colour scheme and design was made to reflect their printed media, also included in this site is a photo gallery powered by their Flickr account. I am very pleased with how this site turned out as I believe it has a great visual impact, made easier for me by being able to use the great photography of Dark Daze and it retains a sophisticated, luxurious feel, reflecting the nature of Ophelia Fancy’s work.

» Visit opheliafancy.com