Zach Sheppard

Authored

Note that this post is archived: I archive posts when they become outdated or feel less relevant.

Zach's portfolio was an interesting project which provided some unexpected challenges. The site was originally built on WordPress but has recently been redone using Perch CMS. Feel free to have a gander at Zach's graphic design work, I'll wait for you to come back...

  • Development from external design.
  • Perch CMS based (previously redone since a WordPress version).
  • Responsive build.
  • Advanced HTML & CSS based interactions.

This project was fun because where I might shy away from certain designs or layouts in my own work, for the sake of browser compatibility and sanity, that was not appropriate behaviour here. Therefore I was always challenged with new paradigms or ways of doing things. For instance, I would not usually put text within a percentage based container which has a fixed aspect ratio - preferring instead a design that is able to adapt to varying content and mitigate cross browser issues. And you know what, it worked out. It looks good.

Another example is the homepage, where Zach provided inspiration and prompts with regards to thumbnail animation. I think between us, we have been able to produce a natural and inviting animation which far exceeds that of the original WordPress version. Collaboration made this sort of iterative improvement particularly effective.

In all, the site is pretty nice in terms of front-end development. It is responsive and does not rely on JavaScript for its animations or other interactions, instead making use of hardware accelerated CSS3 animations. As for older browsers the site follows principles of graceful degradation, retaining all key functionality, the best approach considering user and content.

Following this work I also built Sam Peel's portfolio. It too is based on Perch and is very similar to Zach's from a development perspective, but came with its own set of challenges to achieve the required look.