Goodbye, "SyPhi Creations"

[Phil]

Didn't know where exactly this fit, so I'll put it here.

For a long time I've been hoping to rebrand my little semi-pro design busness. Today, I finally finished it (and just in time for my 5,883rd post too).

www.KineticID.com

has now replaced the three year-old SyPhi Creations brand. I've been using the domain name for a while now, but haven't had the time to change the site.

The site's look and navigation have both changed, but the meat and potatoes are the same.

It's not quite a concept, but let me know what you think.

Oh, and sorry about the pop-up ad. I haven't had a pop-up ad in years, but recently I changed back to my old host, and changed my DNS settings, and somewhere in there, someone's added a pop-up ad to my site. I'm in the process of figuring out who (ZoneEdit, BMCHosting, or Shaw).

[pollux]

Sweet work Phil! The logo is clean and simple, and I really like the colors.

Your website looks great! Easy the navigate and right to the point. My only beef would be against the pop-up, but since you already know...

I wish you could have gotten rid of the frames on the website, as the URL never changes because of it. If someone wanted to bookmark one of your pages, well he wouldn't be able to. Maybe by seeing the TNFF website it'll give you ideas

Well done!

EDIT: BTW, you have an error in the about us section. You say you started this three and a half years ago, but the date says 2006...

[KJTALBOT]

Hey great work.

I loved the BC Lions, 76ers, and Clippers Logos.

The crazy canuck squirrel is very cool too.

[meetthemets]

A couple things...

When clicking on the different sections (baseball, basketball, etc.) I think it would look better to include maybe a small thumbnail of the design, instead of text. When I see a page full of text on a design portfolio I'm really not as interested in looking through the whole thing, where if there were small samples of your work where I could get a sneak peak at what the design was, I would be more intrigued to continue. Let the work speak for it self rather than a ton of explanation as to what it is.

Another thing, it seems like some of your older work was done in paint. If you have started to do more work in Illustrator and have enough content to post, I would get rid of the paint concepts on the site. I know you are probably looking to get as much content on here as possible and want to show a wide range of what you've done. but I would stick to just the Illustrator copncepts as they look much more professional than those done in MS Paint. If the point is to get some additional work out of this, and I were someone looking around, the paint samples would turn me off.

One more. I think you should also note on each design that they are "concepts" and not logo/uniform designs for the actual teams.

Just trying to offer some constructive criticism to make your site better. Hope you don't take this the wrong way.

[fiasco!]

i'll echo what i said at the B!, phil.

"KineticID, in it's present incarnation, was launched on Friday, March 17, 2006, more than three and a half years since it began on July 26, 2006"

don't you mean July 26, 2002?

that's in the About Us section

instead of links to the images, maybe place little buttons with partial images as the links....say, about 45x45 pixels.

also, you might want to keep the religious stuff out...personally, i have no problem with it, but it strikes me a little odd to be on a site that is mainly about trying to gain clients....the about us section reads like a newspaper article to me. i don't know if that's what you want. i'd mainly talk about what you can offer the client, your creativity, and your design philosophy.

otherwise, i like it!

oh yeah, lose the web counter.

not to toot my own horn, but this is from the about us section on my site:

At rev:design, we believe in producing innovative and intelligent graphic solutions that ensure our clients stand out from their competitors. How do we do this? By producing inspired design that brings a fresh approach to solving communication problems. To that end, we collaborate extensively with clients to create strategic design solutions for brand development, print, packaging and web design.

As co-conspirators of rev:design, Joel and Maija Hurst bring extensive and diverse experience in graphic design, illustration, branding, usability analysis, and web design. Our experience and training proves that we are uniquely positioned to guide your project from concept to production.

Please feel free to contact us for an initial design consultation or more information.

...and from the 'services' section:

rev:design works with our clients to develop high-impact visual communications and strategic, intelligent design solutions. Understanding your business, your customers and your communication goals is at the core of our design philosophy.

Our mission is to provide great design that rises above the competition to truly express your unique story and brand identity.

Once we thoroughly understand your needs, the fun part begins. We work closely with you, collaborating at each step and continually refining our work until everything is perfect. For each project we manage everything from the initial "big idea" through the final press check.

Our websites are designed with the end-user in mind, using a hand-crafted process that results in an inspired online presence that resonates with your visitors.

With each project, we strive to provide superior design services that enable our clients to achieve their loftiest communication goals.

...and the 'contact us' section:

We are eager to collaborate with you to make your communications more effective. Please feel free to contact us to discuss your upcoming project or campaign. We will make every effort to respond to your inquiry as quickly as possible ? usually within one to two business days.

In an effort to accurately quote your project, please download and print this project questionnaire. It will help clarify your project goals, schedule and budget. Please answer the questions to the best of your ability and email it to info@revdesign.net. After reviewing, we'll contact you with a project estimate and schedule. You may also use our online request form below.

i hope this helps you, i do believe you have a ton of talent and just need a little push in the right direction to make your site as effective as you want it to be. feel free to IM me if you want to shoot some ideas off me.

[rtrich11]

It's awesome to see how your work has progressed. That being said, you ought to see about protecting it a bit. I know people here have talked about scripts that keep people from directly downloading images. Although definitely not foolproof, it might keep at least a few fools from ripping your stuff off.

[Davey]

I like it SyPhi. The website is almsome and the outline of it is good on how you did it. I also like the logo you made for it. Nice job man.

[hawk36]

I like the logo. Good job. Agree with the point of including thumbnails.

[Phil]

Thanks everyone for the comments. I've made a couple of the quicker changes. I basically copied and pasted (with minor rewording) the old SyPhi Creations "About Us" section... I'm going to look into rewording that entirely in the next while.

I've already weeded out most of the older concepts. Some of them snuck under the radar, others are there as part of sets that have since been updated, and still others are there because I couldn't bring myself to take them off quite yet... I'll get to them all when I start working on the portfolio interface (which I address below).

As far as protecting my work, I have the legal disclaimer and the copyright in each image, which should dissuade all but the most brazen plagiarizer and the most lunkheaded internet user. I'll look into adding some simple protection (like maybe preventing right-clicking on the images), but I've resisted watermarks for a long, long time, and I don't think I want to start now.

Call me a visual purist, but I'd rather have people be able to view my logos unimpeded than have them have to try to imagine what it would look like without the watermark. Again, I'm rethinking that strategy too, and will reconsider my options when I rework the portfolio interface.

As someone who is hand HTML-coding this whole thing, thumbnails are going to take me a while to get online (Notepad roxorz!!111!! ). I hope to at some point. I know thumbnails work great with database enabled sites (I'm thinking sites like CC.com) where I could have it reference a description and an image and put them in a template site, but to do it by hand will be a long process. (If anyone's got a hankering to help a brother out with a database-enabled site, I'd certainly consider it. )

Would you outright replace the links, or would you supplement them with the thumbnail? Most of the time I see just thumbnails, which is okay, but I find then you don't know what to expect really until you've clicked on the link (because generally the thumbnails don't reveal a whole ton).

Again, love to hear your thoughts.

[Brian in Boston]

I really like your new corporate identity, Phil. Further, I'm a big fan of both your Toronto Argonauts and BC Lions logos.

[Swiss]

I like your site, my dear colleague. 10/10.

But there are two points:

- Title: Let's put a <title> Kinetic Identity Design </title> between <head> and </head>

- In "Contact", let's put a form instead of an e-mail because spammers usually suck up visible e-mails. If you are using a form, there are low possibities of scanning your e-mail to be spammed.

[Stampman]

I like the site's logo--it conveys the name.

And it is a better name--try seaching SyPhi on google sometime--you'll get a lot of references to an STD...

(oh and the TNFF site was mentioned above--what happened to it?)

[bhambruiser]

I like your site, my dear colleague. 10/10.

But there are two points:

- Title: Let's put a <title> Kinetic Identity Design </title> between <head> and </head>

- In "Contact", let's put a form instead of an e-mail because spammers usually suck up visible e-mails. If you are using a form, there are low possibities of scanning your e-mail to be spammed.

speaking of email spam- I have found this to be true. My contact email address has gotten loaded down with spam...anyone have any ideas on how to get the spam stopped?

I haven't ever really had this problem before, so I feel kind of dumb for asking.

didn't mean to hijack the thread...nice work on the site.

it's weird I am interning at a place in Birmingham called Kinetic Communications

[Squeaks4]

Awesome man. I really hope I can be where you are at one day in your skills. I have just started messing around with designs and stuff like that, but I seem to be just treading in water right now. And my crys for help in the concepts forum went unnoticed so it looks as if I will be treading for a while.

[KCScout76]

SyPhi - I like the name change. It's professional sounding. Also, well done on your new site. I like the layout much better.