Annomedia

Web-design can be a huge cause of frustration for print-designers for at least three reasons:

• Colors: You can never guarantee that the colors you want to use are the exact colors the visitor will see.
• Fonts: you are not free in the choice of your fonts because you can not guarantee that your visitor will be able to see the fonts you want them to use.
• You can not know how big the display is that your visitor will use.

No absolute color

This simply boils down to the fact that you can not control the monitor settings of your visitors. Maybe he or she has a perfect monitor on a calibrated system, then you are lucky, but most of the time you have to reckon with the fact that you are not. The person might have a mac (and all colors will be lighter) or a windows machine (where the colors will be darker). Maybe that person loves to have his monitor on extra bright, maybe the monitor has absurd contrasts and the colors are totally off because of a defect. This is made worse by the fact that there are differences between the various browsers out there.

Of course you might have heard stories about the possibilities the PNG format has with automatic gamma adjustment. The only problem is that not every browser on every system uses that possibility. So until the time this is implemented, you have to do with what is possible. You have to take a guess and accept that certain things are not possible.

Font problems online

Traditionally using fonts works like this: you say this and this text should be rendered in - let's say - Georgia and if the user has that font on his computer then the that text is actually rendered using that font. If the visitor does not have that particular font, then you are out of luck and an alternative will be used. There are around 10 different fonts you can use because there is a near 99% chance the visitor will have that font (or a variant thereof) on his or her computer. Then there are a bunch of fonts that give you a 80-90% chance.

There is a lot of  talk on the web about the new possibilities to embed custom fonts in webpages (that is: fonts that are not available on the computer of your visitors). These fonts are then stored on the web and are downloaded with your website. About 80-90% of the visitors are able use them. And those who can not use those fonts will use a replacement font (see above). The big question is weather or not this will look right. Will it have the same x-height? Will it have the same spacing? etc.

Are there other options? You can for example create an image from your text and present that to your visitors. This is ok-ish for headlines, but when you are using Content Management System (dynamic content) this becomes problematic because you have to create an image for every text you are using.

Screen-width

The sites I create are - until now - intended to be used on a display that is at least 990 pixels wide. People with a smaller screen will see a vertical scrollbar. For those that have  a bigger screen there are various options.

• Those people will simply see a website that is 990 pixels wide and the remaining screen will be a texture or be left blank.
• you can use elements that are a percentage of the screen-size: they will become bigger when the screen is bigger etc (which could be awkward when rendering text because text can become harder to read when the lines are longer - but there are ways to control that)
• you can use elements that flow: if the screen is wider they will be placed next to each other, if the screen is smaller the elements are placed below one another.

My name is Jeroen Goulooze, I can help you to present yourself on the internet in a useful way.  If you you need a website, we can get together and discuss what you expect from your internet presence, what the look and feel should be and what functionality would fit your goals. If you think I am the right person to do the job and if I think I am able to fulfill your needs we can work together. We then start out by writing a plan that describes the various aspects of your website and based on that I can create that website for you, but always in close cooperation with you. The end result will be a tailor made website, designed and developed to meet your needs. And as an extra I can also offer you hosting and support so you will have someone by your side that knows your website inside-out for questions and problem solving

I've been working as a freelance web designer since 2005 (most of that time in Berlin where I live), but started out as a web-editor in 1996 when working as a journalist for an online-magazine in the Netherlands and from there I moved into web design. Between that time and now I have had various web-related jobs, among them working as a web editor for the website of a major mobile telco in the Netherlands and working for various (web) design firms in the Netherlands and in Germany.
Because my career started in the days the web was still young I have seen various technologies come and go (Explorer 3 was released the year I started working for the web) and I therefor favor simple solutions and compatibility over the latest technological trends because it will ensure that the visitors of your site have the best experience possible.

My services include:

• Web-design: in cooperation with my client I create a design and discuss the functionality you want to help you make the right decisions
• Coding and templating: I convert a design I made or a design you made and into hand coded web ready templates that will be tested in the most used browsers of today
• Content Management System (CMS): I can also offer you a CMS. A CMS is an online program that lets you manage the content for your website and manage the structure of you website (create new pages and menu items) without needing knowledge of web-design or coding for the web.
• Services for Designers: If you are a designer I can offer you my advice and give feedback on your designs to tell you if they are web-ready and I can explain the various things you have to pay attention to. I can also explain various options todays browsers offer.

Under the name AnnoMedia I offer web-design, coding/templating and services for designers. Under the name Alien Saints I offer designs for the people who are interested in something different. Alien-Saints.com is the website where I show my art, but it is also the entry point for those who want something a bit more extreme.

My name is Jeroen Goulooze. And I am a freelance webdesigner/coder. I live and work in Berlin, Friedrichshain (Kreutzigerstraße 18 10247 Berlin to be exact). My website is www.AnnoMedia.com.

I can be contacted by phone with the number (++49) (0)15 772 753 760 when you are in Germany. You can also contact me via (++31) (0)6 13 203 439 when you are in the Netherlands, but it can be that I have to call you back when using that number because I do not always have it with me.

You can also contact me by email.