Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
A minimalist Design I call "White Frame" - 2 versions (vert and horiz navigation)
Images are 700 pixels wide (big views)
Full CMS
Single Level Navigation
Home Page "New Work"
Small Containers for News, Projects, Features
Social Icons for SM
Clean and Minimalist Design
SEO designed
IPad and iPhone CompliantCustomize font and colors to match your logo/ID.If you are interested in this design for your photography business, please contact me.
NOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
www.dongiannatti.com / www.lighting-essentials.com / www.learntolight.com / www.steelid.com / 602 814 1468
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Today's design is "Dark Dreams" and can work for photographers and designers - and other small businesses with a little tweeking
I like the hint of texture.
Features a JQuery album for new work on home page / portfolios.3-4 categories.
Projects
News
Welcome text.
Single level navigation
Shows perfectly on iPad/iPhone
Full CMS
Easy to change text and imagesSee more at www.dongiannatti.com/sales
NOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
www.dongiannatti.com / www.lighting-essentials.com / www.learntolight.com / www.steelid.com / 602 814 1468
Monday, July 26, 2010
New Website Design for Photographers: I call it Deep Glow, but I don't know why... I just do.
Full CMS, a choice of gallery style, SEO pages, featured Project on home page, as well as "New Work" slide show.-- don
NOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
www.dongiannatti.com / www.lighting-essentials.com / www.learntolight.com / www.steelid.com / 602 814 1468
Nice email from a recent workshop attendee. Working - and at rate... yeah, that's cool. I teach 'em right! ;-)
It is always nice to get emails from former workshop attendees.
"Don,
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Sony NEX : All the action is in the small cameras these days...
Sony’s compact, easy to use NEX-5 and NEX-3 with interchangeable lenses and HD video
- New α digital cameras with DSLR picture quality and responsive shooting
- World’s smallest and lightest* interchangeable lens digital camera (NEX-5)
- 14.2 effective megapixels Exmor™ APS HD CMOS sensor
- 1080i HD movie recording (NEX-5) with stereo sound, fast and silent autofocus
- Intuitive new interface with Help Guide and Shooting Tips
- E-mount lens system compatible with α DSLR lenses (with optional Mount Adaptor)
- Sweep Panorama with 3D capability**
Now photographers can enjoy the superlative picture quality and shooting responses prized by DSLR users in two beautifully compact new cameras that are brilliantly easy to use.
Joining the α family, the NEX-5 and NEX-3 team DSLR-quality imaging with the convenience of interchangeable lenses in a sleek new design that slips easily into a jacket pocket or bag. In contrast with conventional DSLR models, the ‘mirrorless’ construction shrinks the thickness of both cameras to just 24.2mm (NEX-5) at their slimmest point. As a luxurious extra refinement, the NEX-5 features a tough yet light-weight magnesium body, making it the world’s smallest and lightest interchangeable lens digital camera.
I'm sorry, lips were moving... right?
White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi | The Australian:
"The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to undermine US President Barack Obama's claim last week that all Americans were 'surprised, disappointed and angry' to learn of Megrahi's release.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
If you love looking at the best commercial photography out there, check out this great App - Workbook (free)
This is a great little App.
It has portfolios by some of the best photographers around. And it is a fun way to see what is going on out there.NOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
Newest Website Design: "Urban Steel" - Minimalist Design w/Texture, sliding Projects Panel and Soft Gray Pallet
Projects in Sliding Panel (optional)
Single Level Navigation
Big 800x533 pixel images
Live area 960 Pixels Wide
Optional Portfolio DesignsSee More of the Designs Offered and our Pricing Options at
www.dongiannatti.com/sales
NOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
Friday, July 23, 2010
Custom Websites for Photographers. Not Templates, Custom and Semi Custom Designs
THESE ARE CUSTOM SITES. THEY ARE NOT OFFERED AS "TEMPLATES".
When you purchase the site, we build it fresh for you, teach you how to use it, and get it launched.
We have two prices for the designs.Pricing"Customized": $900
(we work with you to make the small tweeks that are needed to make it work for you.
As is: $750
(we deliver the site as shown then the site is removed from sales. NOTE: similar designs may be sold
and customized)Of course we have your titles, your logo and your categories entered.
We do not use Flash as a base service, but we do have two Flash based portfolios that you can choose to use. There is no Flash on any other pages. The sites display well in all browsers and smart-devices.
Features:
HTML/CSS/Javascript Framework
Full CMS
Social Media Links
Home Page Project Links
Single Level Navigation
Home Page Slide Show
3-6 Portfolio Categories
About / Contact Page
Optional Video on About Page
SEO'd for Higher SERPPORTFOLIO OPTIONS:
FLASH w/ SLIDING THUMBS
SLIDESHOWPRO.NET
(You will need your own licenses)
JQuery/CSS for all browser types
LightBox (rows and columns)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Just Add Water - Kinda like Royalty Free Photography but these are, well, designs. Irony is thick here
Clients can choose a variety of fonts online and even see how they'll look in the layouts. The new venture's website states "never before has world-class media design been so available, so accessible, so affordable." Pictured above are two of the formatted templates. Left is the "Trumbull," a city/regional magazine format, and right is "Vernier," for trade and B2B mags.
Sooo... let me see. There are now 'templates' that publishers can buy and go around having to hire a publication designer. And judging by the comments, it is a real problem for the publication designers.
I just want to know how many of them ever used royalty free and micro-stock? I mean... you know. Seriously.
As a photographer, I feel their pain. And as soon as I stop laughing at the incredible karma moment, I will get all serious again.
Just, you know, give me a minute.
Clean, Fast Loading, Simple site for photographers. Designed to be very SEO happy and with full CMS
This site is a smaller footprint and would be a good site for a startup shooter.
Only three 'projects', single level navigation, SM contact links, and a rotating slideshow on home page (6-8 images)
This site will also work on iPad or iPhone as well as all other smart devices.
NOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Really Not Sure that Jealousy of the Success of Others will Help Us Succeed
And if that is not enough, we now have photographers attacking other photographers by name. To what end does it lead? What is gained?
Those of you who know much about me know I love jazz. I don’t give a damn whether you do or not. You may like Rap – which I can not listen to for more than 21.567 seconds (I know, I checked). I don’t care if you do. I really don’t. I hope you enjoy the music you listen to. Even banjo music. Even B Spears. I don’t care.
So if I come out and say: “Britney Spears sounds like two mating cats who just discovered they hate each other – in the middle of the mating act”… what does that do for my love of jazz? While I may sound more like Simon than Paula, will you somehow think more of jazz now? Does my love of jazz feel better now that I have that off my chest? Does that further the conversation on music? Or does it kill any possible interaction between me and BSpears folks on the merits of their, and my, favorite music?
Recent discussions with photographers offline made me remember this post.
Journalists? What the Fuck is a Journalist? Oh... you mean political hacks.
1. NEVER respect journalists again. There is no journalism left. Just mouthpieces for the ruling class.
2. NEVER speak to a journalist again. Not in a professional manner, not in a personal manner.
3. NEVER help a journalist in anything. Ever. Ever. Take that for EXACTLY what that means. EVER.
4. ALWAYS ridicule them as the total fucking asswipe porcelain stains that they are.
5. ALWAYS take everything they say as a lie until I have my own facts in hand.
6. REJOICE when I read their names in a specific area of the newspaper. What area? Figure it out.
They and the administration have divided the nation so dramatically that I am now an official hater. Yes, I have a vitriolic, physical reaction to these cretins.
Obama wins! And Journolisters rejoice | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment:- Sent using Google Toolbar"
"SPENCER ACKERMAN: Let’s just throw Ledeen against a wall. Or, pace Dr. Alterman, throw him through a plate glass window. I’ll bet a little spot of violence would shut him right the fuck up, as with most bullies.
JOE KLEIN, TIME: Pete Wehner…these sort of things always end badly.
ERIC ALTERMAN, AUTHOR, WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA: Fucking Nascar retards…
5 Recent Web Designs. These involve modern design and are content rich.
Here are all five of the designs I have done over the past few days.
More to come.All feature full CMS, SEO friendly pages, no Flash, iPad/iPod readability, large images and single-level navigation.Modern in design and functionality. I have been receiving questions about whether they are for sale.Yes. They are for sale. They are not templates, they are customized and tooled especially for you.Contact me for pricing. Thanks. --donNOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
www.dongiannatti.com / www.lighting-essentials.com / www.learntolight.com / www.steelid.com / 602 814 1468
Hmmm... kinda looks good in a dark version as well. Today's new site, redesigned for a dark look. Full CMS and SEO friendly
Well, two sites in one day... whew.
I took the previous site I designed, darkened it up with a cool, very deep texture.Moved the "New Work" to closer to the top so it is not being hidden by the 'fold'.
Added the twitter feed, and otherwise kept the site design fairly straight forward.Again, great design for a startup photographer.
Showing four projects, can expand easily to 12 projects... (probably wouldn't go farther because of scrolling, but their is no limit.
Full CMS and SEO happy.
No Flash - easily seen and navigated on iPad/iPhone and all smart devices.Tomorrow... a more traditional site design in white and black.
NOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
www.dongiannatti.com / www.lighting-essentials.com / www.learntolight.com / www.steelid.com / 602 814 1468
A site design that has a lot of 'content' presented without actually having a lot of content. White space and projects.
On this design I wanted to show a more content rich site with less content. Perfect for a photographer in startup mode, it allows for 8 projects (4 is shown) and 6 images in the "new work" area. This site may need some tweeking for small screens, but I am going to go ahead and put it up. If someone wanted this design, I would most likely work the "new work" into a smaller, closer to image area so that the site would not scroll up and down on smaller screens.
This page would rank very high in SERP's if the photographer kept the content fresh.Inside pages would be similar to top area design with no content below portfolio presentations and projects shown under contact and about info. Just kinda fun working some new sites up while waiting for bigass files to load.NOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Can You Get The Shot?
Every. Single. Time.
It is what the professional photographer is hired to do. Be creative and imaginative and organized and spontaneous and inventive enough to make the shot under most any circumstances. It can be very stressful and challenge the abilities of every photographer at one point or another… but it is a challenge that cannot go unanswered.
Commercial photography has been likened to baseball. Every step up the plate must result in a home run. No singles or doubles allowed. Screw up one job and the ramifications can haunt you for years. Do a smashing, killer, wow-wow-wow job and people accept it with a smile. Not much accolades… it is what is simply expected.
I think it is the most important criteria for deciding if you are ready to go pro.
A new publisher for H+ Magazine
This is good news.
A new publisher for H+ Magazine | h+ Magazine:
"The design, launch, and initial management of a new magazine, as with any startup, is the most exciting, but also the most risky period in the life of the project. When H+ Magazine was born, its publisher, Betterhumans,Inc., did a great job creating great design and content — and brought together a community around it.
response
S I feel quite confident when I say you have no competition if indeed you remove yourself from the numbers and distinguish yourself as a player who knows what the buyer is looking for and that is vision.
In Grace
With Gratitude Selina Selina Maitreya
www.selinamaitreya.com
Monday, July 19, 2010
The KKK reveals its Ugly Face Of Racism in California
Now the president tells us that some high ranking KKK members were only members to get elected... and this ugly bitch is proud of the affiliation. WTF.
Tar. Feathers. Now.
"Nicknamed the Tan Klan or Latino KKK, the Brown Berets are a paramilitary organization founded in the 1960′s that support illegal immigration as a way to forge a racially pure homeland for Latino’s by overthrowing part or all of the United States. Many of these brown Nazis call their plans for a racist homeland ‘Aztlan’.
While this woman brazenly screams racist comments through a bull horn, she can do so because the Obama administration and most of the major news networks in America have her back.
While many in the media will conceal this incident, coverage of the NAACP’s false claim the Tea Party Movement is racist can be found on all networks.
At Gateway Pundit - certainly NOT on the news channel you watch.
New Website Ready. Had issues with loading, but most are resolved. Design mixes web and 'blog' content presentation
As you can see, I took last week's design and made it my very own new site.
It is what I want it to be and will be able to grow along with my work.It is in a subfolder from www.dongiannatti.com, but that shouldn't hurt SERP's at all. Pretty excited, and many many new images in the book now.-- donCover of Book for Jeanne Newhall: "Poemes"
I am happy to show you the cover of Jeanne's book, "Poemes" with photographs by, well, me.
I designed the book as well.
It features Jeanne's poetry and lyrics. Jeanne is a musician and recording artist. You can see her site at www.jeannenewhall.com and also listen to some of her fabulous music for free. The book is offered at Blurb.
The images are from my 2G iPhone, and they printed really well (I have my own copy to make sure - hard cover too... very nice).
Preparation of the images involved some small up-res and careful sharpening (blue channel on iPhone 2G was really noisy) and color saturation/desaturation.
Very proud to work with Jeanne on her projects. I have designed her previous four CD covers and the website.
So I thought I would share.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
I decided I liked the latest design so I took it for myself. getting images ready, and writing the projects now. And why I build constrained sites as well.
2. Texts can crawl to terribly wide lengths.
3. Images that are meant to be seen next to something else can shift.
4. The spatial relationships can be altered to be incoherent
5. Designing a fixed property gives me control over the viewing of the design
6. Elements placed spatially on x-y will be relational to themselves when viewed on any screen
7. It isn't 'design' if it looks a thousand different ways.If I was using a three column layout, and had the left column set to 30% - center to 50% and right column to 20%, can you imagine what that would look like on a cinema display? paragraphs would become single lines. Images that were meant to be wrapped with text to make them contextual would be hanging out with text that didn't relate.Contricting design to a pixel width... and floating that design within a larger context of a background big enough to be seen on most every monitor means the client KNOWS the context of his work is seen as it is meant to be seen.On single column it makes even less sense to design for variable. People do not read sentences that stretch beyond about 6 inches... and even then it is tough to get them to read 'graphs.' It is why newspapers are small columns... easier to read. And while I rarely use small columns for continuous text, it is a concern I have.There has always been sort of a 'web' centric view to this variable design thing. I take a controlled content view of design. I cannot control the monitor, but I can control my content to work within it. I have always viewed it as IT design versus Design design. Not a slam, but usually when I see IT design stuff, it has variable width with no control over viewing the context, paragraphs that extend way too long to read, text that rides up against elements and more.Functionally designed, sure. Aesthetically designed, no. Designed for client readability and usefulness, not at all.I have similar thoughts about always opening into the same browser window instead of launching a new one. On Smashingmagazine.com they have long lists, and the idea is to go and see the work on the list. Every link opens in parent window... so going back to the smashing page is arduous if you have spent any time at the new site... and when you do, the damn thing takes forever to reload...That isn't usability for the readership... that is conceit driven by people who seem to think that there is some sort of 'purity' to the function.To be fair... I have designed floating columns before. In almost every case the clients have had me come back and restrict them.I stay with 960 - and may change to 1080 only because of real estate, scrolling issues on millions of laptops and smart devices, and the reality that using up another 20% means graphics get bigger, text gets smaller (relative to the full page) and more content gets swept across the viewers eyes.Finally... I prefer minimalistic approaches on the web. Overdesign was a staple a few years ago and now minimalism has become almost cliche... I am looking for my own voice, but staying within the parameters of design as I feel and understand it to be done.1. provide easy access to the information
2. provide an easy way for the viewer to find the information
3. create an environment that has aesthetic appeal as well as functionality
4. make the site 'work' for the client instead of being a burden or a waste of resources and time
5. bring an understanding of color, spatial relationships. aesthetics and information design, wrapped in the totality of interactivity AND the reality of the search engine findability.There are way too many - way too many - designers for the web who are simply 'designers' with the only emphasis on the way things look. While that is important, the way things look, and they way things are conveyed, and the ease of finding those things, and the ability for search engines to find them as well are equally important. That takes an understanding of the web... not just CSS and 'cool'.
NOTE: NEW PHONE NUMBER: 602 814 1468
Don Giannatti:
www.dongiannatti.com / www.lighting-essentials.com / www.learntolight.com / www.steelid.com / 602 814 1468
Y! messenger: dgiannatti 
Skype: wizwow 
AIM: wizwow 
Google Talk: don.giannatti
