New Site Redesign

The new Jewish Studies site has been re-launched with a fresh new face, XHTML markups, and CSS driven.

The design was challenging because I had no images to work with; therefore, I had to rely on typography to communicate the edgy look and feel that the program wanted to convey. I spent tremendous amount of time on playing with different type treatments. Thanks to the fascinating shapes of Hebrew letters, I was able to incorporate them into the navigation. I also wanted to give the site a sense of liveliness by providing a set of colors that are warm and elegant.

The redesigning of Jewish Studies website was a great learning experience. Though the process was much more than what I had expected, it was worth invested because the result is pleasing to both the client and myself.

Update:
The compliment below is from Jeffrey Kosmacher, Director of Media Relations at Vassar. I am sharing his words because he touches on the main points that I wanted to communicate with the Jewish Studies site. Thanks Jeff!

Donny,

I love your colorful and elegant use of the Hebrew alphabet, surely the most universal aspect of Judaism. It was also very clever how you tied together each key English word on the page to a corresponding Hebrew letter. For those of you who don’t read Hebrew, the sound each of those Hebrew letters makes corresponds to the first sound of the English word Donny connected them to.

There is one exception, because no one letter in Hebrew makes the “j” sound, but the design has a great solution: it uses the first letter in the Hebrew word for Jew/Jewish.

Mazel tov (couldn’t resist),

Jeff