H*Works

When I joined the Advisory Board Company as a designer in 2000, I was initially doing all print work. Eventually, they picked up on my experience with the web, and I wound up doing a great deal of work on this brochureware piece for a new division of the company, H*Works. The client basically needed to cram a great deal of content into a tight, compelling website to attract attention and new clients.

Initially, I was asked to create some Photoshop mocks for an interface. One of my ideas was a JavaScript-powered rollover graphic that would compress two pages' worth of step-by-step graphics into one 800x600 screen. (This is the model on the first screen at right.) When I made my presentation of mocks, I included a working model of the idea, and this impressed the client so much that they decided to implement similar solutions throughout the site – a simple web technique put to good use. As a part of a small team, I helped design and develop the interface and work through the editing and debugging process. My primary responsibilities on the team, however, were to code most of the site and guide the client on their selections of content and architecture, work with them throughout the editing process and make a good 50-75% of the graphics.

The H*Works site was constructed with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe ImageReady, Macromedia Dreamweaver UltraDev and a ton of handcoded HTML and JavaScript.