Last week, my collaboration with Amber Music — the new ambermusic.com and accompanying Tumblr-powered blog — officially launched. I won’t bore you with too much project management minutia; like any project, it took a little longer than everyone had hoped and had its moments of frustrating communication difficulties. But we ended up with a finished product that everyone involved felt good about. I’ll take it.
A lion’s share of the credit for the work itself goes to Ray, who created the new brand identity and visual design for the site. He had a difficult mandate, trying to tie in to the previous brand identity. Enough said. But he came through heroically, fought for what he believed was right, and the client loved the finished product (as should any rational observer). Once Ray finished all the identity work (which I’ll post pictures of in a separate post, if I can’t get Ray to do it on his own site) and the site’s visual design and style guide, John took the visual assets and turned them into presentation layer (integrated with WordPress) in what seemed like a long lunch break. (The kids coming up today — we’re going to be working for them sooner than later. Oh to have been in school in a post-CSS/Google/Facebook world.)
Above all, thanks to Amber Music for being a great client. They were creative, flexible, and eager to participate in the process, without overstepping. If you find yourself in need of music for your commercial, music video, or even a unique concept involving a track on iTunes or a ringtone, give them a call. As someone who’s spent a lot of time with their work in developing this site, I can say without a doubt, they get the job done right, time and time again.
And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give props to Jamie for all of her patience and support through the process. There’s no doubt that none of it would have happened without her.
Slideshow tour is after the jump, or you can visit ambermusic.com and check out the experience for yourself.
You really should see the full site for yourself. But here are my favorite spots on the tour:
And while we leveraged WordPress as the CMS for the majority of the site, we also created extensions of the Amber brand for Facebook and Tumblr as well:
