Celtic Refurbish

Posted Sunday, 04/28/24

The website for Celtic Remnants has been refurbished! I've meant to spruce it up for some time now, but only recently got the job done.

Splash page for the "Celtic Remnants" website. Click on image to view larger size in a new window.

Home page for the "Celtic Remnants" website. Click on image to view larger size in a new window.

I self-taught myself web design nearly a decade ago. I truly like it - it's quite fun for me. At the time, I went through Open Source Web Design (OSWD) to experiment with the free web templates, which also taught me much. The site ceased operation several years ago, but they kindly kept the designs online for anyone to download and use.

The template I picked for refurbishing the Celtic Remnants website was from someone named Andrew Strojny (who called the template "Mint Chocolate Chip"). The link to his website or portfolio is no longer valid, so I was unable to credit him properly. However, I added his name at the bottom of every page in the new site (re: template based on a design by Andrew Strojny).

Q & A page for the "Celtic Remnants" website. Click on image to view larger size in a new window.

Information page for the "Celtic Remnants" website. Click on image to view larger size in a new window.

My typical routine when creating a new website is to decide on colors, fonts, images and other special touches before building and/or changing a template. It took me about three days to re-create the Celtic Remnants website in the new design, including the creation of specific images (such as headers for each page) and adding a hover effect for the intro page. Note: For more about the process of the "hover effect," see my post Code Play.

Testing (and re-testing) each phase of a template in a browser is also a typical habit of mine. No one can actually see it, but I'm able to launch a "live" preview of the site and check for errors (text and design). It's only after I'm completely satisfied that I upload the entire site for everyone to see.

The updated website for Celtic Remnants also contains a promo video created by Barbara Cerda for the book, a snapshot of the dedication page found at the beginning of the novel, and background music on the main splash page only (The Mystic's Dream midi by Loreena McKennitt, which is about 7.34 minutes long but can only be activated by choice of the viewer.

All in all, I'm very happy with the new design for the online presence of Celtic Remnants, and will likely be for a long time to come.

Irish Eyes: "Celtic Remnants" by Deborah O'Toole

Tags: Celtic Remnants; Web Design

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