Abassi Design Works
Salt Foundry provided web design services for Abbasi design, bringing them onto the web and allowing for clients to easily their portfolio of work. You can see the work they produce for yourself here.
Abbasi Design Works
Building A Greener Portland
Abbasi Design Works is a Portland Oregon based architecture firm. Since opening their doors in 2009, ADW has worked on over 35 projects. The majority of their projects are very environmentally aware. Their designs focus on utilizing the surrounding landscape, living walls, hardwood & natural stone finishing, and large windows to highlight the view & natural lighting. Projects include both commercial, residential, and multi-family developments all over the Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA area.
SLTFNDRY provided web design & photography for Abbasi Design Works.
Back Story
The team at ADW had been steadily working on projects for a few year before finally deciding it was time to get a web presence. Between projects they had a chance to get a loose frame work together and decide on a few key features that should be included in their site. At this point, Salt Foundry was brought in to make their website dreams a reality.
Goals
The main purpose of this site was to showcase current & past projects, as well as usher in new clients. To accomplish this, the site needed to be fairly minimal to allow for adequate focus on their portfolio. ADW also wanted to make sure that the site would be easy to maintain once the project was completed. In addition to created the public facing site, we also aimed to create a few page templates. These templates would allow for quick and easy site updates & additions.
Process
For this project, we first dove deep into the goals & desires of ADW for their site. During this research & discovery phase we explored the sites of other architects in the greater Portland & Vancouver area to establish local trends. As well as nationwide firms to get a feel for what the current widespread trends were. We also worked closely with ADW to hash out the details of their vision for the site. This lead us to directly into the color scheme, page layouts, and image styles. After a photo session & some development, the site was finalized and ready to go.
Challenges
Being graphic designers, we often have to lean on our design know how when creating effective designs. However, it is also important to get into the headspace of the intended user. For this architecture portfolio website, we had to get into the minds of potential customers of ADW. We explored what they would find important and compelling in an architectural portfolio, and worked our findings into the final site.
Key Features
The main element of the website is the portfolio. Each portfolio page lists out a few details about the project, as well as a longer description. These elements are accompanied by a photo slide show of actual photos, renderings, and designs. These images are intended to highlight each stage of the design & development process. The vibrance of each portfolio is also amplified by the muted color pallette of the rest of the site. The grayscale tone will draw the user in and make them feel involved in each project.
Results
When the project was all said and done, ADW had a website that plainly and accurately represented the quality of their work online. Each project portfolio was filled with all desirable details and images to match. Some websites call for a high level of complexity to accomplish their goals, but sometimes a simple & clean solution is plenty.
