Corvus Design Studio Blog - San Luis Obispo, California » web design

Welcoming Sarah Bledsoe to CDS

CDS — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 05:53:11 +0000

We’re happy to announce that the talented Miss Sarah Bledsoe has accepted a design position with Corvus Design Studio. She will be temporarily heading up the design dept while I am away on personal leave. Sarah comes from a long line of artists, from many disciplines. She is the first to venture into graphic design, and her work can be found gracing the pages of websites of some very notable companies, including Rolling Stone, Sony, Apple, Interview, and Reebok, to name a few. We’re very happy to have her aboard. She tells it better, so here are a few words from Sarah:

“I’m so happy to have the opportunity to work with a design studio of Corvus’s prestige. Yeah, I know that sounds snooty, but when you land your dream job, you just feel so special. I am very excited to have joined Jessica as the two designers that make up Corvus’s creative and technical team. And I can’t wait to get to work landscaping the web, as I like to say!”

Latest Project: North County Compost

CDS — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 08:24:54 +0000

North County Compost is one of a set of three related projects (owned by the same client). North County Compost is the first to launch, and one of my favorite designs thus far. Check out the site at www.northcountycompost.com. Being that the Central Coast is a tight knit community, keep in mind that NCC offers high quality soil/compost from local sources. And they’re right here in Paso Robles.

Latest Project: Healthy Harvest Hydro

CDS — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:43:21 +0000

One of my all time favorite projects, Healthy Harvest Hydroponics and Organics‘ new website officially launched a few days ago. Located in San Luis Obispo, H3O offer high quality hydroponics equipment and organic gardening supplies. The shop is the largest on the Central Coast, and stocked full of the essentials.

H3O is a brand new business, and we were lucky enough to be chosen to create their logo, website, WordPress blog, business cards and a 3′x8′ banner displayed on the outside of their building. This is one of my favorites because not only do I have a great appreciation for natural/organic/eco-friendly enterprises, I was able to be very creative and produce an award-winning website that I’m extremely proud of. And H3O’s owners were an absolute pleasure to work with.

I’m sure that you will find the shop and staff equally positive at Healthy Harvest Hydro. So if you have the need for hydroponic gardening supplies or would just like to learn more about how it all works, I highly recommend dropping by the shop (2958 S. Higuera Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401, (805) 596-0430. Check out the website for updates, hours, to request products and to read a little about hydroponic too

Healthy Harvest Logo

Healthy Harvest Hydroponics and Organics Website

Healthy Harvest Business Cards - Double sided, printed on 100lb matte cardstock for a more organic look and feel

Banner at the entrance of the shop

Smashing Book Now Available

CDS — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 07:12:14 +0000

The highly anticipated Smashing Book, by the folks over at Smashing Magazine, is now available. The book covers the best practices in modern web design, including technical tips, coding, usability and optimization.

As any designer knows, Smashing Magazine is one of the best resources for web design. As such, I am looking very forward to receiving my copy!

Price: $29.90
Pages: 313

Visit the Smashing Book post for more info

New Site Design

CDS — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:33:45 +0000

Hello fellow bloggers and design freaks, you’ve probably noticed the new site design this week. We received quite a bit of kudos for the last design, mainly for its use of bold colors and giant header. We wanted to keep that appeal with this new design, but add a bit more “organic” feel to it. I’m a big fan of the watercolor look and wanted to do something like that for a long time. It’s always risky to change something that has been received so well, but after a year or so we get the itch for something new. Hope you like it!

Latest Project: Baxter Clare Website

CDS — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 07:58:43 +0000

Although it’s not completely finished, we’re excited to launch the new www.BaxterClare.com, a website for author Baxter Clare (aka Baxter Trautman). There will be a standard XHTML version for slower connections, but for now the flash site live. This site includes everything: custom photography, graphic animations, custom mixed sound effects, XML data utilization, fullscreen options, and more. The most noteable features include:

Alternates between a nighttime and daytime scene at 7:00pm and 8:00am
Viewer can toggle between day and night at will (click the clock)
XML (RSS) feed from Baxter’s blog
XML mp3 player disguised as a vintage radio
Sql/PHP/Flash Guestbook
Fullscreen mode
Scales to fill any resolution
Custom mixed soundscapes
Lots of hand drawn and photo manipulated animations and effects
Actual imagery from Baxter’s writing space

Hope you enjoy, and please note that this is a rather large site (nearly 2mb included sound), and although it’s optimized as much as possible it is best viewed on a widescreen monitor, and a computer with high speed internet access and at least 1Gb ram. (there will be a non-flash site coming very soon)

Link: BaxterClare.com

The Anthropod Blog

CDS — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:29:53 +0000

Our blog tends to stray quite a bit from web and graphic design information, and more into art and technology. Our lead designer, Jessica Miller, has launched a new, personal blog at www.anthropodblog.com, which will be geared more towards art, photography, technology, local stuff and much more. Hope you enjoy!

Latest Project: JJM Photo Revamp

CDS — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:40:27 +0000

Our latest project is a clean, minimalist flash/xml site showcasing my own nature photography, http://www.jjmphoto.com. For a long time I wanted to do a fullscreen horizontal scrolling website, and I decided my own project would be a perfect candidate.

CSS Book Recommendation

CDS — Sun, 04 May 2008 06:45:30 +0000

I recently purchased the book ”Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design” by Andy Clarke, and was pleasantly surprised. This is not your typical techy book at all. It’s definitely not for beginning developers, but it’s a good read for EVERY web designer. This is a book about purity and design method, from inception to execution, and the necessity of design standards. I have a new perspective on current design trends. I can see where XHTML/CSS can, and hopefully will, take us in the future. Good read, highly recommended.