Zardos Demon - 2012 Website
A new year, a new look!
Welcome to Zardos Demon v2.0. The development of this website started in May 2011 and has kept me very busy ever since. There are many new features that I have added for the 2012 edition of the Zardos Demon website so let's go over them.
The obvious thing you will see is a new layout. I have created this layout because I wanted to be able to change the colour scheme more often. I previously had a website that used a fixed layout, so I know the pros and cons of using them, however I know much more now than I did back then and have decided to give it another try. The aim for new colour schemes would be to create about three or four per year although depending on what inspiration I find, I could make up to five or six. But you can bet that there will be a Tour de France theme come July!
The next thing that I have created is a section dedicated to my past portfolio websites: history.zardosdemon.com. I want to get more involved in creating YouTube videos and when ZDM v1 launched, I was meant to get some videos made but I never got around to it. Now I have no excuses. All the history videos that I create for history.zardosdemon.com can also be viewed on my YouTube page and are identified by the code: HZD. By creating those videos, I have the ability to offer something more than just screenshots.
Version 1.5 introduced the shield logo. With Version 2, I have adopted it as the main symbol for the Zardos Demon brand. Since I have added some new elements to the brand, I have developed a style guide to go with it. I have always wanted to create a style guide just to learn how it's done and what better way to learn than to make one for Zardos Demon. I must say that I took a lot of time and effort and it makes me appreciate the work that professional brand designers do. To view my guide, visit the About page.
The old comments system has been replaced with Disqus. This is due to the developer not creating an update for Joomla 1.6/1.7. But it's no big deal. I have seen a number of websites use Disqus, so I think it might be the way to go. In fact, I think it might be better than the previous system that I was using. Give it a try by leaving a comment below.
Probably the most important addition of all is the multiple width layouts. There are three layouts for this website: Widescreen, Narrow and Mobile. This is a first for me and it ticks another box on the list of things I would like to try. To see the layouts for yourself, just change the width of your browser window. Cool, eh?
That should be all of the important changes to the website. This week I will be creating a few new things for the site such as the ZDM v2 video and some downloads. For now, I would like to thank all of my visitors for a great 2011. I plan on making 2012 better than ever and this new website is just the first step in achieving this goal.
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