Roadshow Website

To piggyback off of Jim’s recent post on our new Reclaim Roadshow artwork created by Bryan Mathers, I wanted to announce that the new Reclaim Roadshow Website is now live! I’ve worked on quite a few websites for Reclaim Hosting, and this Roadshow site is easily a favorite. Simple in concept, but the metaphor is so. good. I’ll share a screen capture with my design ideas below, but I also recommend that you check out the live version at roadshow.reclaimhosting.com for the full animated experience.

The Header

Once we figured out that the theme for the upcoming MSU workshop would be Digital Presence and the looming ‘Ghost of‘ metaphor came to be, I knew immediately that I wanted to incorporate some sort of smoke element to tie into the spookiness of Scooby Doo. I came across these great smoke effect videos on Youtube, so it was quite simple to load one in the background using Elementor.

Logistically, I wanted the header to answer the Why, What, & Where of the Roadshow. I also created a little Flower-Power button graphic that links off to the workshop registration.

The Mystery Van

With artwork this good, I really just wanted to let it do the talking. I added an entrance animation for the van (it bounces in from the right) to create that vroooom feel. I also love playing with overlapping elements on sites to break from the website status quo of clean boxes & uniform lines.

The dotted path on the left starts off the page and pulls the eye down the site towards the next phase of important info. I also love that it plays on a mysterious scavenger hunt vibe.

The Poster

Again, with the idea of letting the art do the work, I added pieces of tape to Bryan’s poster to make it look like it was quickly slapped onto the reader’s computer screen. The Groovy 70’s font that used throughout (since I unfortunately can’t just steal Bryan’s handwriting) is called Keep on Truckin’ and free for download.

The Previous Episodes

Finally, I’m excited to be able to start collecting previous episodes (i.e. workshops) almost as a portfolio in this section. When you hover over each box with your mouse, you’re given a summary of an episode past, with links to that specific episode’s website.

I can’t wait to see how this site changes & grows over time. While the top header elements should stay relatively the same, the current episode poster will switch out depending on what’s current, and the episodes section should grow as well. Bryan doesn’t know this yet, but I’d love to continue working with him to create a new monster/theme for every episode. So while we might be tackling the Ghost of Digital Presence this February, we may have a handful of other monsters to conquer in the future.

Interested in joining us come February? Be on the lookout for more details at roadshow.reclaimhosting.com/msu.