The Site
Yakini, of StyleMePrissy.com is a frequent client of mine and a pleasure with whom to do business. She has a very distinct style and wanted her site to match her glamorous taste. StyleMePrissy.com launched in May 2011 is a fashion and personal style blog that focuses on urban glamour, celebrity style, and pop culture. When she launched StyleMePrissy.om, Yakini elected to maintain her familiar brand image [see prissymommy.com] through the use of the Vector Drawing portrait [see old image below]. However, as a forward thinker, she began to envision a site that was more connected to her love of fashion and glamour.
The Request
When Yakini contacted me she asked me to redesign her Masthead (header) so that is was “simple and sleek” and not as big. She also asked that I tweak her current design [click here to see screenshot of previous design] so that it was wider and included floating social media buttons.
The Work
This site runs the InterPhase Theme from ElegantThemes.com and Yakini was happy with the theme and the general colors. So, for my part, what needed to done was pretty cut and dry.
The Masthead/Header
The headshot that she included had a very sensual feel to it and I felt that only a floral pattern would accentuate its energy. The black background was a necessity but there had to be depth to it as black can sometimes feel too flat. This was done by adding a brownish color to the pattern and adjusting the pressure of the layers (5 in all) to create a textured feel. The lighter pink of the site title needed to stand out more while remaining classy. I also made the header thinner/shorter which helped to soften its look.
Here are the Masthead before and after images:
Old Header vs. New Header
The Layout:
To make the site wider I had to recreate the content area background, the sidebar title backgrounds, and the footer image. In recreating the content area background, I increased the darker tan right side to accommodate her 300px-wide advertisements so that they no longer hanged off the page. I also darkened the shadow between the two colors to form a more distinctive barrier to aide the eye in breaking up the information. The Sidebar Title background was also edited to remove the original left-border shadow and to replace that with a transparent background to make it fit seamlessly against the right edge of the content area.
Old Content Background vs New Content Background
Extras:
I also removed some design elements that were outdated and/or no longer necessary in the updated design. Additionally, I added the floating social media buttons to the left of the site through the use of CSS and hardcoding.
To see this design live, visit Style Me Prissy.
About the Author
Kristina Daniele is the Owner of and Lead Designer at BeautifullyArtful. Kristina Daniele is not usually in the forefront of the projects on which she works. She is kind of like Oz (without the really cool songs, costumes, enhanced voices, or dances and of course- she is real). She began blogging in 2003, but her experience in web design, online writing, and social networking began a lot earlier with a little creative writing personal website hosted on the now defunct Geocities...She's come a long way since then!