Welcome to the CMHB design wall.
Who am I?
My name is Carl MH Barenbrug and I am a web designer and this is a platform for my website creations for both freelance and my past/current employers. I am located in Edinburgh, Scotland and have been designing and developing commercial web projects for approximately four years.
I studied at the University of Abertay Dundee and graduated as a BSc in Multimedia Development in 2004. Since then, I have worked for a small media company, Calecom where I had taken on the role of Senior Web Designer. I am now working for the University of Edinburgh, taking on the role of Web Designer/Developer for the Business School and Economics where I am designing and maintaining a multitude of websites to reflect new corporate branding, which is set to be launched at the beginning of 2009 - these web projects will be added to my portfolio when moved live.
What coding languages do I know?
XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, ActionScript, PhP, and a very limited amount of XML.
What are my personal interests?
- Web 2.0 / 3.0
- Social Networking (Facebook)
- Technology
- Languages
- Travelling
- Football (FC Internazionale Milano)
- Moto GP / F1 (V. Rossi / F. Massa)
- Tennis (R. Federer)
- Exercising
Design portfolio.
A school directed at prospective students and corporate members, thus illustrating a brochure style of design. The minimalistic feel reflects the new branding.
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The concept of the website was to present an array of t-shirt designs to be complimented in the best possible fashion, whilst ensuring quick and easy purchase.
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A design for the Business School's Applicants website, which allows prospective MBA students who are considering accepting a place in Edinburgh an outlook on the city and school.
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SBE derived from the new re-branding project undertaken by the University of Edinburgh, providing prospective UG/PG students an overview of available courses.
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The Paul Watt photography website was requested to be designed in Flash to present his works in a contemporary style. The site portrays a range of his work.
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The SIRE research website was a redesign and development project which required a neutral feel because it had to work in conjuction with affiliated Universities.
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Photographer Laura Dewar asked me to design a portfolio platform for her array of photographs. She requested that I try to capture the essence of her personality.
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The Carbon Benchmarking Project works with companies to develop frameworks to measure and compare corporate performance on climate change.
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Design blog.
Simple Planning to Optimise Your Designs... (11/11/08)
Designing is not just about what the designer thinks looks 'aesthetically superior' to that of its competitors - there are many other factors a designer must establish before the physical design process even commences. Allow me to break this up into 3 categories or rather questions to ensure you can produce a systematically planned web design.
1. Before you even consider loading up your lovable applications and getting carried away with your inspiration that you are so desperately eager to evolve, first consider the most important point. What are the main goals and objectives of this website? If you can establish what the fundamental objectives of the site are, you can seamlessly create a structure or framework that will seem logical. It is often wise to refine these objectives and concentrate on the individual pages within the structure to optimise its content.
2. Who is your target audience? It is important not to try to cater for everybody, because you will end up not pleasing any of them. It is imperative you pinpoint a specific audience you wish to target. This essentially allows you to form your web pages in a way that is accessible to the targeted audience based on their needs and characteristics.
3. Last, but certainly not least - How should you structure website content? Planning the structure of the website as a whole can allow you to categorise the content efficiently, which will result in a usable and accessible website. Although you could take this method back to basics by using a pen and paper, personally, I prefer using an application called Microsoft Visio.
I've always been a big fan of planning, and if you answer the above questions before delving into the design itself, you will most likely find yourself more inspired than you were initially, which is only going to improve the design process. So good luck. Ciao.
Quick facts.
Background statistics:
Name: Carl MH Barenbrug
Born: December 1983 (24 years)
Nationality: British (half German)
Height: 6'2"
Favourite Song: Rocket Queen by Guns N' Roses
Favourite Film: Pulp Fiction
Current pleasures:
- Inter being top of Serie A.
- Learning French with Michel Thomas.
- Regularly posting on my Inter group on Facebook.
- Reading Harlan Coben books.
Current displeasures:
- Web designers who think it's imperative to design for IE 6.
- Not being fluent in French. Help me Michel.
- Anybody who uses IE 6.
- Being so far away from PMB.
Contact information.
If you wish to contact me for a free design quotation, or have any general enquiries, please complete the email form below, and I will contact you within 24 hours: