Blog of website & interfaces designer, Darran Morris.

I have been a bit busy lately. So I sneaked one site up without even letting you know.

Origin Technologies are a programming company in Dublin. They hired me to do a rebrand and create a slick new site for them. Take a look, its over at origintech.ie.

Next up: Science Picture Company. These guys create amazing quality 3D scientific stock imagery. I did branding, web design and HTML/css for their new website. Check it out - Science Picture Company.

Here’s a new site from Poly, it’s called VLAB.

VLAB is an immersive 3-D environment created by projecting onto four screens, everything given that extra dimension through the use of a trendy pair of spectacles.

The homepage takes those awesome red-green cardboard glasses we probably all used to varying effect back in the day. The textures give a tech feel to the site and of course plenty of whitespace to give that airy feeling.

As usual, the site uses the latest and greatest Modx CMS which allows @fredherrera in IADT to keep everything up to date.

So head over and take a gander. I’m pleased with this one!

Sometimes you just have to spend your long weekend working on something because there is no other time to do it! Hence was begotten the new, rather slight, Poly website. Awesome.

Its been difficult these days to find time to put up my new work. I realised that one of the problems was that I had to write three paragraphs on the job I had just done, and I just couldn’t find the time!

Hope you like the new site. Let me know if any creases still need ironing.

Oh and more new work coming real soon.

Finished this insane but awesome site for a bunch of mad people early this year. If ever a country needed to take a lighter look at life, its Ireland at the moment and these guys definitely have their finger on the pulse, creating new hilarious satire every week.

It was an incredibly interesting site to work on. I had never worked on a magazine or newspaper type site before and they have a unique set of challenges for the designer. I will write a bit more on how we worked to produce the site later on. Right now have the head stuck in several other big projects!

Just before Christmas we finished the Affordable Home Solicitors website for Lawplus.

The site is clean, clear and presents the information in an easy to digest manner. Photography and imagery give a friendly approachable feel to the site.

Read more in our work section or visit the website. Enjoy!

Some incredible new tools have been created for Jobspeaker, the online job search management tool and Poly has played a key role updating the design of the site to allow for the new tools.

The homepage has received a makeover to market the new functionality and to reflect the change in priorities for the application. The addition of a new Firefox plugin which allows you to save and forward jobs is a big shift in focus for the service.

A clear and easy to use area was created in the site to manage saved jobs. Users can now update the status of each saved job to reflect the stage of their application/interview/job acceptance process.

Jobspeaker is evolving fast to become a major player in the online job search market and will be undergoing many updates in the next few months to add more power to an already impressive toolkit.

iLeads and iFiles iPhone app icons

Two great apps have just been released and app-bits has designed the shiny logos to market them on the App Store.

The first is iLeads by Bartizan Connects. The company has an app that works something like the fishbowl full of business cards at networking events, but your own personal fishbowl where you can retrieve your leads afterwards. After a few concepts and iterations, and some real care gone into the glass effect on the bowl so that it is recognisable in all sizes, the icon above was produced.

The second icon is for iFiles by Imagam. The company wanted something to represent the ability to share files, so we came up with the idea of three users holding hands. This is then presented on a swishy yellow leather folder. Posh or wha’?

Head on over to the work section on app-bits.com to see more detail and sizes.

Got some more free stuff for you! Drop over to app-bits and you’ll find some free icons designed specifically for use in the tab bar in iPhone apps.

All I ask is that you drop me a line, or give app-bits a mention if you use them!

Download the free icon set here.

For apps.ie, app-bits, and a bunch of other material I have been creating, I needed a nice vector based Android phone to display work on the device. I set about illustrating a T-Mobile G1.

I thought this may be handy for other designers and developers to use, so here you go.. A free, downloadable vector based psd of a G1 phone. Enjoy!

Been busy lately. Really busy. With two sites coming out one after the other this month and more designs in the pipeline, there’s no rest for the wicked.

Apps.ie has just been released to the public, fortified with twenty developers, 36 apps and counting. The site is a showcase for the incredible iPhone development talent in Ireland. Its a place for users to find Irish based apps also.

The site has a minimalistic, clean layout with neutral grey tones to show off the work done by the developers rather than the site itself.

The site is based on a CMS, but has added functionality to support the developer logins, where they can manage their app listings with ease.

As usual, there’s a small case study in the work section of the site, go check it out!

Update: Apps.ie featured in an article on the Sunday Business Post, but the article is not online (yet).