The Beginning
by: Patrik Lövström
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When we discussed to create Pfalanor (which was not the first name we thought of) we discussed what we wanted it to be, which where to create good web design and web pages from scratch. We are not the first company to do this and we are most certain not going to be the last, and we are probably not going to be the best at it either, so why am I saying this? Well for starters the designer has no prior education in webdesign (it´s true) but I have an eye for good design, or so I think anyway. Does this matter? YES. So why does it matter? Well, we all know that an education often does two things. One – it gives you an advantage and teaches you about the “rules” that exists in the world of design and two, it tells you what not to do and vice versa. Does it do anything more than this, of course it does. But the big question is. Does one need an education in order to understand what looks good and what doesn’t? NO. Good design is a term we designers often use, you’ve probably heard it before, but there are different ways to interpret good design. I can look at different works that has been done and think – “this was one ugly piece of work” while other designers or people celebrate it and calls it a millstone in history or something like that. It will probably happen whit creations made by me at some point.
The main goal is not be excepted by everyone, but be excepted as different and pioneering. I´ve always been interested in design and how things are created. Design can sometimes be a piece of art made by nature or humans and sometimes it is created by “accident.” You do something or test something new and get´s surprised by the results, but very often a piece of design takes time. It can take weeks or even longer to collect all the bits and parts you have in your mind. But it does happen that it gets created in five minutes – the idea. And everything starts as an idea, always. An idea can be captured on the way to your job or when you are sleeping, listening to a good song on your radio or looking at other works done by other people. One can find bits and pieces in different elements and pull them together and find what you where looking for. Take a look at the logotype I created for Pfalanor – you probably think that I planed it for days or weeks, but the truth is that it happened by accident, I did not plan for it – go figure! Fairly often when something is created it is based upon a very simple rule: “let´s try something and see where it takes us.” In the matter of choosing a font – as an example – one try´s to look at the company and what they are reflecting. Is it something modern or is it something classic. These two things determine the path you need to choose, but also the colour theme or combinations. Fairly often when someone orders a webpage they choose a light theme – and i am talking about a white background and light colours. Why? Well, apparently people are afraid of the dark and the colour black and before i continue whit this article i want you to look at some sites that have chosen black as there theme and yes i love it... “Ones you go black you never go back”
These images is taken from the article “35 Black designs that shows us that ones you go black you never go back” and you can read the entire article by at > http://abduzeedo.com/web-design-black-layouts-part-2 be sure to check out the first article also > http://abduzeedo.com/web-design-black-layouts so thanks Paul at abduzeedo.com for these two great articles.
So what´s up whit these black theme´s? For starters the black theme gives you so much more life to the page and it gives you an opportunity to use colours and light in a different way that you wouldn’t be able to do whit a light theme and the message you are delivering. I usually use the term: “splash” when i am talking about black – and by the way, black is not a colour it´s just absents of light and white is every colour – Since i live in Sweden people tend to be afraid of the dark and i guess that it comes down to the many things, but if you use black the right way it tends to be much better and it is so much more calming and sometimes romantic. When i am using the term “splash” i really mean that, not literal splash but to use black as a part of your choose – some here and some there, or as your basic choose. One site that now is turning to the dark side is www.tagate.com; this is how the page looks like now – before the pfalanor kick´s in:
This is going to be one exiting project. Even if Pfalanor is a new design company, i really think that we can bring something to the plate. So if we can do this now, how will it look like whit in a year or two when we have evolved. One of the first official work we got was the new banner for http://www.recipewonderland.com :
Well, this is it now. The first article. A new one will soon appear.
