The Jackson Public Schools Career Preparation System site was a fairly short, simple project involving web design, development, and some graphic design.
The graphic design was the easiest part. The only logo files that CPS had were old, discolored, pixilated JPEGs that simply were no longer suitable for use. We redrew the logos in Adobe Illustrator to create vector versions of the logos that could be used on both the site and in print applications.
The design of the site was focused around the idea that the site would operate as a brochure but would need to be expandable as the program grew. Because of this, the navigation was designed with the ability to add and remove items in mind. The navigation was given enough space to support up to eight links and could be reworked to fit a ninth in if needed (although this likely wouldn’t happen as it goes against the “Rule of Seven”).
Also as a result of this, the non-essential items on the page were pushed to the edges, so that the content has center stage.
A small programming piece was included to allow for a set of rotating images across the top of each page. This allows CPS to highlight the students that they work with and makes the page seem new each time it’s visited even if the content has not been updated.
The above text and images were copied directly from the portfolio of my former development company, O6 Web Services, as I imported it over to this blog. It was not updated for re-publishing. This project launched in August 2003.