The new JATECSON.COM site!
Oh snaps! I am super stoked to launch the new remixed version of my website that features the other side of my work. Jatecson.com will showcase my journey into portraiture, editorial, advertising, and personal work.
I sat down with Joshua of Zero Style a little while back. Working with him has been an incredible adventure. He has made the experience of branding and design an exciting ride. For years I was always searching for the right people to work with, or attempting to do it myself (bad move ja!). For me it was presenting the work the way I wanted to do it. The viewing experience was huge for me, and I’m glad Zero Style was there to make it all come together.
So what is new to the site?? Lets take a mini tour, shall we?! You can see that the I kept the awesome simplicity as my original site, but added some new features.
* Full screen slide show mode! - Large images! Life is good! You’ll notice that when you rollover the images in gallery mode, you’ll see an icon appear. Click away and check out the images individually. You can navigate with your mouse, trackpad, and LEFT/RIGHT arrow keys.
* Social Networking - On the bottom left corner of the screen is a SHARE button. Click on that and POW! A magical drop down window will appear to share either a gallery or image via Twitter, Facebook, and Delicious. Twitter me!
* Deep Linking - Now you can share galleries, as well as individual images with people. Each gallery and picture has its’ own individual ID and link. Sweet! Copy and paste or use the Share tab.
* CMS - This Content Management System is the backend of my site. Zero-Style created a system for me to now share my images faster and with more efficiency. Although you’ll never see this part of the site, the CMS is huge a factor in all of the moving parts.
Please stay tuned for all the updates to the site! It’s going to be a constant work in progress and updating machine! Thank you also to the people who have supported me along the way and believing in what I do. I have been fortunate to meet and cross paths with amazing groups and individuals, and it’s one of the best perks of the job. Have a great monday and keep inspiring!
New things to come in 2011! Stay tuned!
To everyone who has supported me, thank you for all the love. I never would have made it this far without all of your faith in me and help throughout the way. This year has been the best ever, and I’m even more stoked to take it to the next level for 2011. Again, thank you for everything!
The New Love & Weddings Website + Blog!
Welcome to my new blog and website for 2010! It was a fun and long process, and it’s finally ready to go. There has been so many new things I’ve come across in my journey, and I just wanted to take the time to thank everyone who helped me get there and also show where I’m headed in my career. It all started with recreating my brand.
As much as I love graphics and know how to use design programs, I knew I had to contact some of the best creative people to really help me convey my creative identity. I’ve made the mistake in the past of doing the branding myself, and realized I was never into the final product. I feel now when you look at whatever it is (your logo, business card, website, your imagery, etc.), you should LOVE it. If you don’t have that personal feeling when you look at your own branding, there is a good chance the people you’re trying to reach out to will feel the same way. Branding can be a very long journey. It can also be an expensive one as well, but good investments pay off. Do the research and find the right people to work with. That is what is most important. Never settle.
I contacted Melanie Lantin and asked her to design a new logotype for me that expressed my visual style and what my business was about. She really helped me lock in the identity design and as the design process continued, she came up with several treatments and concepts for me. It was a very awesome experience to see it come alive. We both loved the freehand, freestyle look, and after lots of little touches, I realized good design is just like photography. It’s all about the little things that make it come together. This is what she ended up with. I love it! Thanks so much Mel!
Logo..Check! Off to my website and online presence. One of my biggest dreams was to always have a site that was my own and could stand by proudly. I had that feeling even more because I felt like the personal style of my work was really coming together, and that I wanted to find the best way to showcase it. What we see often is great work from an artist, but presented in the wrong way, often due to bad layout design, typography, too many effects that slow down the site and viewing experience, and overall navigation. What I was looking for was a minimalist design that would simply showcase the work, but still have subtle elements that screamed great design.
Joshua over at ZERO STYLE was the best to work with. He has an amazing imagination and talent for mixing design with photography, and making it work for the web. Here are some of my favorite things about the website.
• Horizontal Scrolling - I love storyboards! I think most especially in the wedding arena it’s really fun to fuse a series of images together that can help people relive certain moments.
• Video Elements - I enjoy everything about cinema. I feel like it can help most artists become better photographers to watch their favorite movies and break down the angles and cuts from every scene. I was able to integrate some really subtle background footage for the website that I will be constantly updating as the site grows. So far I have the sunset from outside my window, palm trees from venice beach, cherry blossoms and leaves from my visit to Kyoto, and other organic textures. I miss cutting up video on final cut pro, so it’s nice for a change to get creative in other ways.
• Full Screen Mode - It’s just sweet seeing it in full screen mode. Haha. It makes the photos come alive even more.
• Typography - From the drop down menu and rollover type in the homepage, it’s just clean and simple. I don’t like going to sites where you can’t read because it’s too pixelated or the font is too stylized.
• Deep Linking - Navigation made easier and less clicking for everyone else. I can now reference images and pages from my website with ease.
The blog design was also done by ZERO STYLE. I wanted to keep a consistency in the branding and came up with this sweet layout. I love a lot of the features about Tumblr, and decided to start a new chapter in my blogging world from scratch. If you want to check out entries from my old blog, you can click here.
To everyone that supported me, I just want to thank each and everyone of you for believing in me. The journey to good branding is a long one and I am nowhere near the end, but it’s a great feeling to know that I’m on the right path.
