Journal
Andrew + Hana
3 July 2006 › 16 comments
Amidst the craziness of planning a summer vacation, I managed to squeeze in some time to work on a site for my little brother, Andrew Smith. He recently proposed to Hana Harpold, his girlfriend of four years, and for some reason she actually said yes. Seriously though, I am very proud of them. He certainly has life more figured out than I did at the young age of 22.
He is currenly in the Doctorate of Physical Therapy program at University of Washington, and is president of his class. She is also attending UW for a doctorate, with plans to be a pediatrician. Considering that I am still in the process of finishing my masters degree, the fact that they skipped from bachelors to doctoral studies makes me more than slightly envious.
Needless to say, with a duo of doctors and a couple of preacher types in the family, my parents couldn’t be happier. It will be interesting to see what profession my little sister sets her sights on. She’s been class president and school president the past three years of high school, and will be school president again her senior year. I just hope she goes to WSU not UW!
Anyway, about the actual site – It’s just a single page, with a PHP include that randomly loads sets of 5 images, out of a possible 20. I figure, this will let me shuffle in wedding photos eventually, as the site changes over time. I’m using Thickbox for the in-page photo pop-ups. This effect was created by Cody using the lightweight jQuery JavaScript library. In my opinion, this is a far better option than Lightbox which is more bloaty code-wise (108k vs 44k). Alrighty, go check out AndrewHana.com and let me know what you think.
Discussion + Dissension
Comments closed after 2 weeks.
#1 Lea
I love love love the gallery! Good job! And wow, your brother and his future wife are a really attractive couple. They’ll have pretty babies. ;-) And crazy—Delta Upsilon? My sister is dating a guy who used to be part of DU up here in Edmonton. Anyway, congrats for your brother and good job on the page!
#2 James Finley
Nice looking website/gallery. Are they going to be getting anything else on the site like a blog or something?
#3 Nathan Smith
Lea: Hey, that’s crazy. Small world, eh?
James: They’re not really the blogging types of people, and school keeps them both pretty busy. Of course, if that’s something they wanted, then I would surely get that set up for them. It’s just not a priority right now.
#4 Nathan Logan
I say to throw some JavaScript on there to rotate through all the photos, or maybe even does a fun little Ajax call and just reloads the photos with new ones at the click of a button…
Either way, the design and layout are spectacular. Great work, per usual.
#5 Joshua Lane
Sorry I wasn’t around when you IM’d me, but it looks great Nathan! Congrats to your brother and his future wife :)
#6 Eoghan McCabe
Looks good. Best wishes to the happy couple. :)
#7 Carolyn
What do you mean what do we think? Everything you do looks great- why would this be any different? :)
LOVE the statement about friendship and love. Reminds me of when I got engaged. We’d been platonically best friends for three years and then suddenly…..everything changed. Here we are, thirteen years later.
#8 Yannick
Nicely done Nathan. Nice and simple and I also like the big text for the banner and just under the images. The hover effect on the images are cool too.
Also congrats to your bro and his wife to be.
#9 Nathan Smith
Hey, I’m glad everyone likes it. I thought maybe it’d get ripped on for being a bit too plain, but I guess sometimes simple is better.
Nate: Yeah, I suppose I could’ve gone the Ajax route, but since it’s just one page, that would’ve been overkill methinks. Maybe Thickbox 2.0 eventually.
Carolyn: Yeah, isn’t that a cool catch phrase? That’s the quote they came up with for their wedding. I’m not sure if it’s original, but I hadn’t heard it before.
#10 Josh Byers
Looks great! I am doing the same thing for my little brother as well for his wedding on Dec. 23! I really like the way you implemented the photos and will have to do something similar.
I need to get his invitations done first though…
Nice job!
#11 Artjom
Nathan! Amazing job! First I was looking for the navigation, but then realized the site didn’t really have or need one. I really like the use of Georgia for caption and the whatever-the-font-is for the header image! The colors are great and the image hover borders made my day. Seriously. I am happy and glad now for the rest of the day :)
I did something like that for my sister’s wedding, but now I see what you mean when you say sometimes simple is better.
Sorry for the long comment. God bless ya all today on July 4 (which is also my graduation day)! :)
#12 Ara Pehlivanian
Man, you do great work! :-)
#13 Nathan Smith
Josh: That’s cool you’re in a similar situation. Don’t worry, I’m sure their wedding invitations will turn out great, as will the website.
Artjom: Thanks, I’m glad it helped brighten your day. By the way, the blocky font I used for the logo and quote is named Clarendon Blk BT.
#14 Brent O'Connor
I like the design and everything. My only minor criticism though is that the contrast is a little too subtle on PowerBook monitor for the Date and tag line, “Love is Friendship set on Fire.”
#15 Wesley Walser
Thickbox isn’t working for me. FF on a mac with javascript turned on. Actually I just chcked cody’s site, and his demo has stoped working for me as well. Not sure whats up with that. If everyone else is working fine though perhaps it’s me.
#16 Nathan's Parents
Nathan, your Dad and I both love what you’ve done!!!!!!!! You have such a talent that you’ve been blessed with. Thanks for all you do. By the way, good digging for the tomato plants! They are doing great! Tell Olga my black thumb is turning green. Mom