My Graphic/Web Design History » 2000

Chase Hibbard (2000)

John — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:23:05 +0000

A mutual friend hired me to do a site for Chase’ 2000 campaign for Montana State Senate. I worked with Chase and his staff to assemble content for the site. The real treat was having access to professional photography by John Reddy. His work is amazing. In retrospect I wish I had done more with that source material. Unfortunately Chase didn’t win. And as with Anita’s site, I wasn’t able to acquire any stats regarding the traffic.

When I locate the original files I will update the screenshot with a better quality version.

Anita Varone (2000)

John — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:39:39 +0000

A mutual friend hired me to do a simple one-page site for Anita’s 2000 campaign for Lewis and Clark County Commissioner. I used her brochure as a jumping off point. I was paid one non-running 1987 Mazda 4×4 pickup. Unfortunately I didn’t save any stats for the site so I don’t know what her traffic level was. Also, when I find my original files I will update this screenshot with the full page site.

Discovering Montana (2000)

John — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:42:43 +0000

I worked solo with ITSD on this project to redesign the State of Montana’s homepage. I started with a rough mockup that they commissioned from an advertising agency in Billings and took it from there. I managed the entire project from inception to delivery. It was implemented in Adobe GoLive at the request of the client, as that was the tool they wanted to use to maintain it after delivery.

The biggest challenge, as it was with most sites of the time, was cross-browser consistency and display. The war between Netscape and Internet Explorer was raging and neither of them fully supported cascading stylesheet standards (though the latter was especially bad). Another consideration was accessibility as the state has to cater to all of its citizens. At the time, and after many discussions, the client and I decided to create a template system that utilized a text-only layout for those who needed it, and a fully-styled version. Both used the same content files so that updating the site would not be a nightmare of version control. I thought it fairly ingenious for static HTML (with server-side includes) and no formal content management system. Through later usability testing by the University of Montana it was discovered that this was not in fact the best way to serve disabled users.

A design feature of the site was the ability to easily update the masthead at the top of the page and the semi-circular image on the left. Not only could the site be “freshened” this way, the templates could also be reused for other agency web sites, and it was. This design was reused, and these are just the clones I created, for the following:

Department of Revenue
Department of Corrections (templates only)
Information Technology Services Division (templates only)
Risk Management and Tort Defense Division
Commissioner of Political Practices
State Tax Appeal Board
Montana Consensus Council
Montana Historical Society, Encountering Montana: Lewis and Clark in Montana (design change)
Legislative Services Division (design change)

After the launch of the original Discovering Montana site, and at the urging of the client, I was given a Special Award (12/6/2000) for my efforts by TRW for the project.

Then, after another company came in to do some other systems work for the state, they started calling themselves “Discovering Montana” and claimed all my work as their own.

Years later the design/templates were eventually discarded completely and redesigned in-house by ITSD. All web design for the state was brought in-house by 2003 and I had to go a different direction with my career at Northrop Grumman.

Economic Impact Summary (2000)

John — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:45:16 +0000

TRW (now Northrop Grumman) in Helena publishes a summary of how our company and group of employees effects the local economy. It includes everything from education information to home remodeling dollars spent here. Most years I’ve designed a cover for the document, usually involving a theme of growth or partnership with Montana. Before the purchase of TRW by Northrop Grumman in 2003 there were no guidelines at all for this design.

This particular year we stayed with the growth theme, and this design hits you over the head with it. The images in the circle were taken from a campaign of marketing materials I designed called the “TRW Roadshow.” I haven’t decided if I’m putting any of the Roadshow material up here, but you will see these six images show up elsewhere, even on the 2009 EIS cover. We believe in growth at Northrop Grumman as well as recycling…