Skip to content

Fingliss.com

East Providence, Rhode Island
Douglas Fingliss Web site

Project Details

  • Company: Fingliss.com
  • Industry: Business consulting & computer services
  • Responsibilities: Design, XHTML and CSS page builds, copy writing, logo and identity design
  • Launched: July, 10 2010
  • View This Project: www.fingliss.com

Project Summary

I met Douglas Fingliss many years ago when the two of us worked together at the touch-screen kiosk solutions provider, MontegoNet. Working closely with Doug (I was the Creative Director, he was the company's head of tech support and later on he became a sales channel manager) allowed the two of us to create both a strong working relationship as well as a friendship.

Later, when Doug left the kiosk company to become part of the Computer Doctors, I continued my working relationship with him and a number of the projects in my portfolio are thanks to this ongoing partnership.

When Doug decided to strike out on his own and start his own consultancy, one of the first things he did was reach out to me to ask if I would help him create his new brand. I was honored to be asked and I immediately accepted.

This project was a joy to work on. Doug really gave me total creative freedom on this project. That freedom allowed me to think about 'technology consulting' from a different angle. Rather than focus on the 'technology' aspect of Doug's consultancy, I focused on the 'consulting' part and the relationships that he builds with his clients. This approach led me to abandon stylistic choices normally present on 'tech' sites and instead go for a bit of a vintage, 'timeless' feel for the design. I used a variety of real world textures to give the site a sense of depth and substance and tried to establish a brand that felt trusted, as if it has been around for awhile (check out the 'Est. 1978' designation on the logo banner, which is the year that Mr. Fingliss was born).

There are a number of little touches like that 'established year' on this site, including the opening sentence on the 'Meet Doug' page, which states that he is a 'technology consultant, computer service technician, and...' (the next part features a number of silly job titles that randomly get fed onto the site each time you refresh - my personal favorites are 'former Shamu trainer' or 'inventor of the double-stuffed Oreo cookie'). If you check out the page, be sure to refresh a few times to see some of Doug's wacky titles!

This type of humorous writing is featured throughout the site. Doug gave me some general ideas as to what he needed the site to say, but I really wanted the site to have a fun voice and to be a bit lighthearted. Thankfully, this is perfectly in line with Doug's personality, so it really made sense to do it anyway and, for me, it was really great to be able to craft not only the look and feel of the site, but the overall brand, including the voice of the site itself.

Like many of the projects I am working on these days, this site features a variety of CSS3 effects - so while the site has been tested in all the usual browsers, there is a little extra awesome in there for Webkit-enabled browsers (Safari and Chrome).

You can see Doug's new site at fingliss.com.