Stephen Romano

December 8, 2012 in Web Design

Website: www.stephenromanoshockfestival.com

About the Client

Stephen Romano is an acclaimed illustrator, screenwriter and author, living in Austin, Texas. The primary goals of the updated web design were to promote his work as a writer and create awareness of his new novels, books and film projects as they come out, including Resurrection Express, which was the top priority. Stephen is well-known as an illustrator, with Shock Festival one of his better known works. Shock Festival is an illustrated history of "101 of the strangest, sleaziest, most outrageous movies you’ve never seen". An elaborate work of illustrated fiction, Shock Festival is a hilarious tall tale of imaginary sleazebag grindhouse and exploitation films, lavishly brought to life with hundreds original movie posters.

He also wanted a site that would act as an organized hub for all of his communications, professional profiles and social media accounts, allow anyone to reach him easily, from any number of avenues online.

Challenges & Goals:

This project came with a ticking clock, as Stephen had an advertising campaign firing up in June 2012, leaving us the month of May to gather content, create site mapping, design and build-out the new site. Our goals were to not only update the current site design with an up to date grunge/cyberpunk, distressed, yet neon-infused design aesthetic but to also get the site designed, built out and launched in as short a time as possible.

We consulted with Stephen frequently via phone and Skype, making sure to get his approval for every step of the design process, so we could ensure that the design was meeting his expectations early on. This prevented having to waste time on too many design revisions. We were able to nail down what he wanted visually in the first round of design and from there, only small revisions were necessary.

Outcome:

Stephen made this project one of our easiest by providing timely feedback and getting all the images and content we'd need to us right away, according to our specs. Though he had a lot of ideas for the design, he communicated what he wanted to us in such a way as to make the design process a breeze. His no holds barred, sassy feedback made revisions easy and fun.

Briana and Jennii worked in tandem to share the design and build out load, cutting build out time in half. We were able to launch the site with no issues or errors, and all SEO and peripheral functionality in place. Matt also helped out with creating key graphics on the fly, to help move the final build-out and launch forward on schedule.

Stephen was a blast to work with and his timely input and approvals helped us get the site designed and launched without a hitch!

Here's what Stephen had to say:

"The site is amazing and I am very proud to have it up now. The work is top notch and the professional experience has been the best I've had thus far. Just great work, guys. I will recommend you to all my friends and associates and even a few enemies! Amazing, amazing, amazing. The site looks magnificent and I am 100 percent proud of it!"

Read Stephen's post about his experience working with Rough Ride Creations here.

Social Media Design:

We also provided Stephen with:

Custom Twitter background

Killer Crew:

Jennii Palmehn: WordPress web design and development, build-out and launch.

Matt Freyer: Graphic design (homepage slider panels)

Briana Malmstrom: Project management, site mapping and wireframing, design consultation and assistance, site build-out, and internet marketing and social media consultation.