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The Ever-Changing
Design of the Tesseract
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The Tesseract has been through a number
of design changes since its inception in 1997. Below are Tesseract logos
which have been used through the years, along with notes on the design
of the site.
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My very first web design ever ever ever. The
background was a pretty little sky image with fluffy clouds,
found who-knows-where. The squares and words were added with
some early graphics program, which gave only an approximate
feel I wanted, of interdimensionality, or folding space, like
a Tesseract.
The early layout was very simple, and HTML-coded
entirely in Notepad. When the site began, it was only the
home page and a list of taglines
I had been collecting since 1993. The backgrounds were all
the same - the light blue sky at left.
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Version 1.1
December 1997
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I decided to try for a more dramatic look -
using the "negative" feature on a graphics program
created a night-sky sort of look. A simple table was used
as a text menu.
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The interlocking squares in the above examples
never really lived up to my imagination. Eventually, I got
my grubby little paws on a graphics program that could "buttonize"
images, and this heavily influenced the Tesseract's design
for a time.
To maintain a "space-time continuum"
sort of feel, along with a bit of continuity, the night sky
and general color scheme of the previous design remained.
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MS Image Composer changed my approach to graphics
considerably. The new logo was similar in design and color
scheme, but had a canvas look. Backgrounds to date had been
based on other people's images, and I thought having more
original graphics would be a good idea. I decided pale, canvas-textured
backgrounds with borders on the left would be a good idea,
allowing for readability but still maintaining visual interest.
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| By February 1999, the Tesseract had grown so much
that I decided it needed a sitemap. Each section within the site
had its own look. The main home page, shown above, was blue and
pink; other pages were cream/beige with pearls, pink/rose with
stitching, light blue with ribbon, lavender with violets, etc.
Non-original designs were still used here and there, as the Renaissance
Scroll divider seen in the screenshot, above. |
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After two and a half years, I decided the Tesseract needed
a completely new design, which - I realized for the first time
- didn't have to have anything to do with the name. I therefore
set about re-doing the site in a flowery, pseudo-Renaissance/Art-Nouveau
style using softer colors: green, cream, and mauve. The effect
was always a bit more muted than I was aiming for. Layout was
accomplished with a complex set of nested tables.
Non-original images were removed (except where needed as illustrations)
- backgrounds, dividers, and section titles were re-designed
to create greater harmony within the pages. Backgrounds and
images were created with MS Image Composer.
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Version 4.0
December 2003
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In late 2003, the Tesseract moved to a new web
address. Along with the new URL came a complete overhaul,
not just of design, but of content. Many of the old sections
are still here, including Taglines
(the one that started it all!) and my Sketchbook
On-Line, but others which had become obsolete were removed.
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Unlike previous versions, each page links only to the home
page and site map unless required within the text, so minimal
maintenance is required for accuracy, yet a visitor is still
never more than two clicks away from where they would like to
be.
The colors are similar to the previous version, but the design
has simpler lines, and white replaces the cream color for a
brighter effect. For the first time since the beginning, the
logo is no longer trapped inside a box. The flower divider-bar
is the only element to survive from the previous design. The
harp-lady on the main page is non-copyrighted clipart, colorized
by me. Otherwise, most of the graphics were created in either
Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. For the first time, DreamWeaver
has been used extensively to insert such flashy features as
rollover images for the links.
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since
August 15, 1997
This page last updated 4/23/04.
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