Welcome to Interactive Llama. I create and implement engaging and intuitive websites. I'm easy to work with and provide reliable communication. If you have a part in creating websites, be sure to check out the ideaboard for inspiration.

Projects

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Rachel Steely, Fine Artist

Identity & Website

Rachel Steely is a visual artist that takes fresh viewpoints on traditional subjects. She wanted an identity package that was traditional, yet contemporary--like her art--and a site that would place her work front and center for potential buyers.
This site is live, but is currently under development.

Highlights

  • Responsive design including mobile first, "320 and up" methodology, fluid grids, media queries, and Javascript image replacement allowing screens and connections of all sizes to easily display its content
  • HTML5 semantic markup including rich snippets for SEO
  • Javascript polyfills to support older browsers (IE 7+)+
  • WordPress-based content management system
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Avondale Meadows

Website

Strategic Capital Partners is reviving this historic 100-acre property located along the Fall Creek Greenway less than four miles from the heart of Indianapolis. SCP requested a welcoming website to motivate developers to invest and create partners in the surrounding communities.

Highlights

  • Responsive design including fluid grids, media queries, flexible images allowing screens of all sizes to easily display its content
  • Flexible slideshow
  • WordPress-based content management system
  • Listed on Media Queri.es
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World Class Beer

Website

American beer drinkers need not to settle for "the big guys" when craft and specialty beers are on tap across the country. Each member of the World Class Beer Network has beer passionate individuals bringing the best beers in the world to you. The World Class Beer Network needed a promotional and educational site as well as a point-of-sale location tool for its catalog of more than 400,000 products.

Highlights

  • Original WordPress module with its own database and stored procedures provides addresses and distance to draft and package locations of beer brands
  • Dedicated mobile version of full site
  • Imports monthly sales data to update location tools
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Special Olympics Indiana

Website

Sport is a universal language that unites people on and off the field. Be a Fan™ and join Special Olympics Indiana in providing sports training and athletic competition to more than 11,000 Indiana athletes. SOI needed a new website to make their games and fundraising events more accessible to the public and their own athletes. The site was described by one SO national staff member as the "best website in the movement."

Highlights

  • Customized event calendar
  • Client managed content blocks
  • WordPress-based content management system
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Monarch Beverage

Website

Each day Monarch Beverage successfully transports some 64,000 cases of beer and wine from its Indianapolis distribution center to more than 5,000 retail venues throughout Indiana. Monarch requested a website to connect with their patrons, run contests, promote their products, and recruit a skilled workforce.

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East Chicago Marina

Website

The East Chicago Marina is a welcoming stop for Lake Michigan travelers as well as home to the Boardwalk Grille & Banquet Center and the Indiana Harbor Yacht Club. The city wanted to promote their newly renovated (2010) marina and its amenities to the public.

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Lorenzo's Ristorante

Website

Inspired by the taste of Tuscany, Lorenzo's serves up Italian charm and authentic cuisine that will appeal to the most discerning tastes. Lorenzo's asked for a low cost, quick-turn-around, one-page site that would be accessible to mobile users in preparation for Indianapolis hosting Super Bowl XLVI.

Highlights

  • Responsive design allowing screens of all sizes to easily display its content
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Meridian And Main

Website

Spread across 34 acres and offering more than 300,000 square feet of space, Meridian & Main will accommodate a wide variety of hospitality, medical, retail and commercial tenants. This premier address provides high visibility within the prestigious North Meridian business corridor and will serve as a primary gateway to Carmel, Indiana's downtown renaissance. This micro-site includes an interactive site plan and area demographics.

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MB2 Advertising

Website

In 2008, when Miles and Brinson, a full-service marketing firm, decided to rebrand to MB2 Advertising, they refreshed their website to display their creativity and show off their past work. This project features parallax Flash animation along with other creative touches.

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Environmental Recycling Solutions

Website

Waste disposal is a dirty business--and we're not talking about the trash. Many companies that claim to provide green services actually outsource some or all of their client's recycling operations to uncontrolled third party vendors. Indianapolis-based, ERS, Inc wanted to promote their proper, compliant recycling and disposal services to prospective clients and show that they help a company's bottom line while protecting our environment.

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Contact

Hi, I'm Stephen James, and I live in Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm a front-end developer with a broad experience across many mediums and disciplines. I have a marketing agency background and have collaborated with illustrators, printers, writers, and public relations specialists to create the best projects within the requested budgets.

When not saving the world from poorly-designed websites, I'm curious about most topics, but sincerely enjoy overseas travel, photography, hiking, enjambed poetry, film scores, and empowering recent immigrants to the U.S. with English lessons.

If you have an exciting web project you need to succeed or are interested in adding my talents to your team, contact me today.

Ideaboard

A place for ideas on design & development

Subtle Patterns

Subtle Patterns

“Nice subtle backgrounds for your next web project”

NounProject

NounProject

“The Noun Project is a crowd-sourced collection of icons that can be downloaded as SVG files.”

The design of a signage typeface

The design of a signage typeface

“The design process itself was also very different to that of designing a typeface for print. Usually a type designer first sketches out the outlines of certain letters. But naturally, this focuses on the final design and its stylistic details. However, these very details will be the first to disappear when the text is read from a distance. What matters here is the skeleton of the letterforms.”

HTML5 element flowchart

 

HTML5 element flowchart

Try to decide which HTML5 elment to use?

CreateJS

CreateJS: A suite of Javascript libraries and tools designed for working with HTML5

Includes:

  • Library for working with the HTML5 Canvas
  • Tweening and animating HTML5 and Javascript properties
  • Provides an API working with audio
  • Manage and co-ordinate the loading of assets
  • Stand alone tool for exporting SWF animations as EaselJS sprite sheets that can be used in Canvas and CSS

Making the Transition from Development to Design

 

Making the Transition from Development to Design

“Designers who understand and can work with code are becoming the prototype. Your transition is not going to happen overnight and a lot of your thinking will need to bend. However, I think you will be surprised by how much of your thinking will not.”

  • Don’t stop building things
  • Learn design in order of dependency
  • Design everything you do
  • Care about your audience
  • Talk about design and listen even more
  • Learn from the time-tested—and emulate it

Information Surfacing: Communicating through Design

Information Surfacing: Communicating through Design

“Conceptual models are nothing new, but often become unintentionally obfuscated during the design processes. “

Flat Icons & Icon Fonts for Media Queries

Flat Icons & Icon Fonts

The Best Browser is the One You Have with You

The Best Browser is the One You Have with You

The Best Browser is the One You Have with You

Direction-Aware Hover with CSS3 and jQuery

 

Direction-Aware Hover with CSS3 and jQuery

99% Invisible – The Arsenal of Exclusion in City Planning

99% Invisible – The Arsenal of Exclusion in City Planning

Cities are great. They have movement, activity and diversity. But go to any city and it’s pretty clear, a place can be diverse without really being integrated. This segregation isn’t accidental. There are design elements in the urban landscape, that Daniel D’Oca calls “weapons,” that are used by “architects, planners, policy-makers, developers, real estate brokers, community activists, neighborhood associations, and individuals to wage the ongoing war between integration and segregation.”

Slideshow with jmpress.js

Slideshow with jmpress.js

“A presentation framework based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions”

Responsive Navigation Patterns

Responsive Navigation Patterns

“A few ways to move your content blocks around the page.”

TypeButter Optical Kerning

 

TypeButter Optical Kerning

A type kerning library for jQuery

7 HTML5 Facts & Myths

7 HTML5 Facts & Myths

Designers should care about HTML5, but mastering it should be driven by a love of the principles it was based on and not an ideal of fame and riches.

Responsive Web Design: Missing the Point

Responsive Web Design: Missing the Point?

Camera jQuery Slideshow

Camera jQuery Slideshow: Allows touch swiping

Camera | a free jQuery slideshow

Code a Responsive Navigation Menu | Design Shack

Code a Responsive Navigation Menu

After absolute positioned or animated elements, menus are often the most difficult to make responsive (in CSS).

jQuery Scroll Path

jQuery Scroll Path: Use to define custom scroll paths. Parallax scroll, except without the parallax effect.

jQuery Scroll Path

IE8 is the New IE6

IE8 is the New IE6: IE8 has around 16% market share worldwide and over 18% in USA

IE8 is the New IE6