The key to a successful website is being able to find what you are looking foor, and quick. Elegant and clean lines give a website a great feel, but first and foremost, websites are about content and communication. The challenge of clarity stems from the fact that as the complexity of the message rises, so must the structure of the information. Great websites find a perfect union between form and function, and grace and organization. What follows are examples of Timo's design execution and his use of subtle balance. Look for how the pages carry their information with clarity and feeling.

Featured Sites

Thomas Klope Associates, Inc. Landscape Architects: www.klope.com

Challenge: Update a website to match the clean, and minimalistic sophistication of the Landscape architecture firm.

Solution:
Over the course of several months, Timo worked with Klope associates to express the clarity they were looking for in a new website. The architects have a colorful and diverse body of work that they wanted to showcase. Eventualy Timo went to several of the their projects sites to shoot photos, so that every last detail of the website was crisp, and on message. This firm hits every detail for their clients, so their site had to show it, and does.

Monica Brown Children's Author: www.monicabrown.net

Challenge: Bring the wonderful world of Monica's children's books to an online audience.

Solution:
Finding inspiration in the colorful book illustrations and working closely with Monica, the site grew organically into the same magical place that Monica's books inhabit. The site is able to show the whole story of these children's books to a greater audience of parents, teachers, fellow authors and book buyers, in a way that the simple books can not. The site offers up links, reference material and descriptions as well as profile information about Monica the make the reading experience all that much more richer. With the amazing content on hand the real challenge was only to make sure nothing was left out and that it would continue to shine within the same style as the books. The site has been effective at bringing in a new web audience to Monica's books.

Larry Christiani Construction Inc. www.christianiconstruction.com

Challenge: Christiani Construction builds estates. Their website has to be big and sharp. Every square foot of their projects gets master craftsman's treatment, so a website must show all that detail in style, and in a well organized way.

Solution:
The website shows images of details and grand views of their projects, without the clutter of categories and an unnatural hierarchy. When you show big projects, they need space and room to breath. The website, has a minimal feel, but is elegant and highlights only what needs to be said; the work is big and perfectly executed, period.

Duxbury Architects: www.duxburyarchitects.com

Challenge: Show fantastically designed homes to potential clients.

Solution:
The web is an ideal form to show off images, because it is directed, accessible and vibrant. The images of the homes built by Duxbury Architects were taken by nationally acclaimed photographers and many are published in books that have been distributed world wide. Months of fine tuning and collaboration resulted is this awesomely simple world wide web site; designed to accentuate the high class and beauty of the homes built by the firm.

Spectrum Resources: www.spectrum-resources.com

Challenge: Build an inviting and simple website that allows visitors to order services through a web form and be maintainable by Spectrum Resources itself.

Solution:
Meeting locally, Timo and Spectrum Resources fine tuned the idea of providing an order form within the scheme of the site design. Everything down to the images was hand chosen or specially shot on location to represent SR's clientele. Using XHTML, very little Javascript and little CSS, the site was put together to be in tune with the radio users who are Spectrum Resources' clients. The site is reminiscent of the FCC website and is fixed width to provide a clean and structured presentation.

R. J. Dailey Construction: www.RJDailey.com

Challenge:Create an upscale website to demonstrate the upscale home building services R. J. Dailey Construction provides its clients.

Solution:
R. J. Dailey construction is a well known and high end home builder, and their work speaks for itself. With great clients and homes to show, the website didn't need to work to impress visitors. The website just needed to present what the images blasted to anyone who looked at them and what the magazine articles said. Using a modern and "black tie" design with a subdued yet classy color scheme, the website just screams with the quality that R. J. Dailey Construction puts into its work.

DTB Econ Pages: www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~dannytb/

Customer Feedback:
"The best part about working with Timo, was that he understood the artistic vision I wanted for the site and it was easy to work together with him to implement it."

Challenge: Produce a unique and chic college website to present this graduates student's work, in 3 days.

Solution:
In the matter of 3 short days Timo and Dan sat down like they were cramming for a college test to hammer this site out. It only needed to be a few pages and have minimal content in order to show this grad student's hard work to his colleagues. What resulted was a unique and crisp deign that shows the traveled and learned person in a take notice and visually developed style.

Example Sites Archive

Trout Brook Farm: www.thetroutbrookfarm.com (Archived Version)

Challenge: Build a comprehensive website that tells the full story of an historic and wonderful piece of property being put up for sale.

Solution:
Through the process of gathering the content for the website, Timo was able to connect with the property and get a real sense of what the land was about. The property has been in the family for hundreds of years and has all the traditions and history to go along with it. So the site had to be more than a simple gallery of some pictures. Anything less than a fully interactive virtual history wouldn't have done the property justice, so Timo put together maps, old photos, new images, interactive views, and text into a story that tells the full tale of this land and its multi-generation family of owners.

This is a gem of a website that preserves the story of a historic land.

Caviar Butler: www.caviarbutler.com - (Ownership change and redesign)

Challenge: Build a quick and clean, yet sophisticated site for the start up operations of the service company.

Solution:
After a night or two of collaboration with the client and several mockups and designs, we struck on a unique and classy look that matched the caviar service the company offered.

Vaso Azzurro: www.vasoazzurro.com

Challenge: Present the fine cuisine and pleasant atmosphere of Vaso Azzurro to it's clientele.

Solution:
The patrons of Vaso Azzurro enjoy the great food and drinks presented by the restaurant, as did the food critics of local newspapers. The site focused the users attention on the key elements of the restaurant; menu, reviews, images, directions and nothing else.

La Prensa/The Press: N/A

Challenge: Extend the print form of the La Prensa/The Press newspaper to the web.

Solution:
This site was put together using hints and elements of the newspaper, but it was taken further to take advantage of the richness of web media. The site is intended to wrap itself into the newspaper, extending its form and function.

Caputera.com: www.caputera.com

Challenge: Too many people claimed to use their heads and have common sense, but the academic jargon filled arenas of thought just were not very inclusive. Could we build a site that was pleasing to everybody, but also got people to think, even the anti-intellectuals out there?

Solution:
This endeavour continues to grow and add content. One of the contributors has even published a book. With forums, a blog, and sections for writings and images as well as art. This whole site is an experiment in thought both in its structure and its content.

Third Millennium Redux: www.jubal.com (release info N/A)

Problem: Completely overhaul an existing game code base from the database scheme to the html UI, to rid it of bugs, tie it into a more advanced user management system, and add 50% more functionality.

Solution:
After a good month of coding and 2 weeks of designing the UI, the result was a game that could enter Beta testing. The original code base had sat for 3 years idle and incomplete. Timo, using all of his technical prowess, high level planning, and creative design skill whipped the game into a shape it had never seen. Putting the game on course to eminent release, a personal difference with the game creator prevented him from pushing the game through BEta testing.

Dardalani: the city of shadow: www.jubal.com (release info N/A)

Problem: Build a web enabled role playing game (RPG) using the telnet based technology of a MUSH server, and increase the emersion and interface aspects of the game by adding images and simplifying the game play for accessibility.

Solution:
"Dardalani: the city of shadows" is a web based multi person role playing game. It was a collaboration between the game designer, the back end MUSH architect and Timo, the front end, user interface and middle-ware programer. It was a part-time project for the 3 of us for over a year and we were nearing release when Timo stopped working on the project. The game will be available for play through Jubal Online inc. www.jubal.com

There was no budget on this, so it was a project of love rather than a business endeavour. As such we had more freedom to be creative. This was a double edge sword though. We had to be creative with our design to make it work since we didn't have the physical and human resources that most game shops have.

The game play is driven by a reworked MUSH running on Jubal servers, which enables the UI to interact with the normally telnet based MUSH. The UI is a combination of a FLASH 5 application and a communications daemon written in PERL. The overall design is modular and therefore not clean and simple, but it is all open source technology and can run on a cheap linux box with little more than PERL, apache and a c compiler.

WRQ: wrq.artmachine.com (intranet)

Challenge: WRQ was a design shop in the bay area, but didn't have the technical know how to streamline their own workflow. As with many graphics designers, distributing the wide range of file formats and design variations that are needed by their clients, can be a big job and quite time consuming.

Solution:
A logo dispenser was built for WRQ. Using and idea from the creative staff, Timo along with another programer put together what they termed the super logo dispenser. Using a database and a custom application to drive the web site, a decision tree was translated into html for the distribution of WRQ's logos. With the site Blue Arc's clients didn't have to contact them for logos, they could just go to their super logo dispenser and run through the decision tree to the log they needed.

First Union E-Library: www.firstunionelibrary.com (mothballed)

Challenge: First Unions's e-library site became outmoded and incapable of presenting new advertising campaigns.

Solution:
Using existing e-library code, developed in-house, a team consisting of Timo and a coder, migrated, redesigned and extended the original site to match the new advertising needs and look and feel. The whole site construction was accomplished in only a few days, yet maintained a high level of success.

Saturn E-Library: www.saturnelibrary.com (mothballed)

Challenge: Saturn's e-library site became outmoded and incapable of presenting new advertising campaigns.

Solution:
This site was pulled off back to back with the First Union site and was accomplished in much the same way. Although not as technically demanding, this site had more rigorous design challenges. Both sites challenged Timo's team both creatively and technically, but the team was able to step up to the challenge and succeed.