Nur Ahmad Furlong

Category: Portfolio

  • nomad-one Recent Project: Arabella Website

    Arabella Golf & Spa Resort & Hotel South Africa

    I recently completed a little website design project for Arabella Hotels & Resorts. This mini-site is more of an entrance into their main websites for each specific resort and needed to give a brief showcase of each resorts. The best way to showcase places like resorts and spa’s online are pictures which reflect the atmosphere, spaces, relaxation so that would-be visitors can transport themselves into the space and take themselves on a little mental journey. People want to know where they’re going to be spending that valuable relaxation time and need to be transported in the atmosphere they’re looking for. This is true as well for advertising properties for sale whether it’s residential or commercial. Seeing something and getting a real sense of the space and the surroundings makes a world of a difference.

    Arabella Western Cape Hotel & Spa

    I coded this site using XHTML & CSS with as many web standards as possible but due to time constraints and scope changes I must admit there’s a few tables being used in the html. The nice thing about this page is that even though all images are in flash, all text loads very quickly and the SEO friendliness of the textual content is quit good, with a nice semantically correct hierarchy of content, ie. menus are lists and headers in their H1 & 2 tags. I did advise the client against placing all the venue visuals in flash as the initial loading prevents visitors seeing the venues as quickly as possible.

    I quite enjoyed this little project as it gave me some time to craft some nice little interface goodness which I haven’t done for a while. The elegance and luxury of the venues comes through with the soft shiny gradient. I did find the curly font a little difficult to work with in this case as it makes the main headline a little illegible.

    All in all though I’m happy and learnt a few little CSS tricks along the way. This project was developed through a new media agency in Cape Town(not telling who) but all the work was done by yours truly.

    What do you think of this Design?

  • What your logo should & should not be doing

    Have you ever turned up at an event inappropriately dressed, maybe too casual, too formal, you wore 2 different coloured socks? How about waking up for one of the most important events of your life with a huge zit on your forehead? I’m sure you’ve had that experience where someone tells you they’re sure they’ve seen you somewhere before or that you have a familiar face, or you’ve met someone before but just can’t remember what they look like.

    Make sure your company looks the part

    These little life experiences teach us alot about appearances, how we value them and the impact they have on the decisions we make. Your company or organisation is no different. Ever attend a corporate function or business meeting and all you had were those cheaply printed business cards without a logo and just your companies name written in comic sans font? Every company has its zit moment, the moment when it is not dressed appropriately, when it’s presentation is less than what it should be or gives the wrong impression. Many companies are forgotten because they have not made a memorable impact on those they interact with. It’s like those great television commercials who’s brands you just can’t remember.

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  • Branding Bettina Branding

    I was approached by Bettina Moss, a Strategic Brand Consultant, to develop a visual identity for her new brand consultancy, "BettinaBranding" and to assist with creating a simple yet interactive online presence. Bettina had a few ideas for starters which helped get the process going, but once ideas were put through their paces a few new directions developed. One of the initial conceptual ideas was to create a spiral element which conveyed the message of Branding being an inward and outward looking process. As is the case many times what is seen in the mind comes out very differently in reality and we progressed to develop a simpler yet bolder identity.

    Draft Logo & Branding Ideas

    bettina-logo3

    Because of the name BettinaBranding and the emphasis on the B it Bcame clear very early on that the letter B was our friend though at times it wasn’t Bhaving the way we would have liked it to. Oh I’ll stop B’ting around the Bush, oops, couldn’t help that last one.

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  • Syntell Website Redesign

    After a few months spent working on advertising campaigns it was refreshing to get back to what I enjoy most, designing websites. It took a little bit of getting used to again as it’s been possibly around 7 months since I’ve done web designs on a daily basis.

    Syntell Website Redesign Mockup # 4

    The brief was to give the Syntell website a modern & fresh feel while still maintaining the brand identity and colours. Other areas of improvement were information architecture. Certain key service areas needed to be showcased on the homepage in a prominent yet subtle manner. The client also requested a light interface with more white or light spaces.

    One of the main challenges was how to give each content area it’s own prominence and space while attracting the viewers eye to content in a hierarchical fashion. This was achieved using positioning and framing as well as different backgrounds. I am still waiting for feedback on this project from the client but am personally happy with this draft to date.