SMACK HAPPY BLOG

Smack Happy Facelift

green half circles
| Nicole Hanusek |

In much the same way that an interior decorator might redecorate her house often, I have decided to redesign this web site. I'm not too fickle though because the original design lasted a whole two years.

In much the same way that an interior decorator might redecorate her house often, I have decided to redesign this web site. I’m not too fickle though because the original design lasted a whole two years. As I continue to create web sites (over 13 years now!), my design skills mature and grow, and this web site needs to reflect that. I’d like to share my process with you.

Thumbnail Sketches

I begin with thumbnail sketches. In my head I look at these tiny pencil drawings and see color and texture. As I lay things out I think about what I want to focus on and what the viewer should focus on when they see the site.
Smack happy facelift 1

Color Sketches

Then I create a more fleshed-out color sketch. I play around with a color palette and continue thinking about the focus and the content. Part of the goal in this redesign was to focus on what I offer as well as the visual elements. I was really happy with the colors of this sketch.
Smack happy facelift 2

Photoshop Mockups

After that I move on to Photoshop. The first attempt was quite a bit too dark and unfriendly. I reassessed the situation and lightened it up significantly, settling on the design you see now.
Smack happy facelift 3 Smack happy facelift 4

WordPress Theme

Then it was just a matter of creating a new WordPress theme and turning it on. Voilà! I should also note that I was excited to upgrade the code.  🙂

Nicole Hanusek

Nicole Hanusek

Nikki Stormborn of the House Smack Happy, First of her Name, the Custom Coded, Queen of the Designs and the First Website, Nichole of the Great List of Typos, Breaker of Rules, and Mother of Puppies.

I've been designing and coding websites since 1998. Yep, that's before the Internet was popular! I currently live in San Francisco, but I started out in Cleveland, OH. In college my major was illustration and one day I was working in the computer lab and my colleague was looking for jobs in our industry. I thought to myself, "I should probably do that too!" So I sent my resume to every place that offered graphic design positions in my area. I interviewed at a web consulting company, and the owner asked me why I wanted the job. I didn't even know what the job was! He hired me anyway, and on the first day, the Art Director handed me a thick book and said, "here, learn HTML." And so I did, and here we are. I'm hooked.

What I like most about building websites is that I get to be creative visually and solve problems. Growing up, I was a huge fan of math and science, so the coding part of the job scratches that logic and trouble-shooting itch. I get to partake in the artsy side and analytical side - the best of both worlds!

My goal is to help make everyone's life easier. By building easy-to-use websites, I can help my clients, as well as their clients.