I mentioned the deal in my last post, but we were able to get the new site for Promoto Promotions up and running over the weekend. Jason Merritt, the previous webmaster, was helpful in getting the full server access I needed and after that it was a matter of feverishly bringing the new design online.

I did end up going through a few different header image designs. When we initially prototyped the site I knocked together a quick example logo that looked like this:

But Elaine, who own Promoto, provided an official logo which is pretty cool. She had an older design with a similar aesthetic, but the bike itself in that image was really old school. The newer version reflects modern bike design. I at first tried it on a panoramic image I stiched together from some old shots of a race:

Unfortunately because I didn’t want to cover up the racers on the track I had to place the logo to the right and it didn’t look to good. Next I tried flipping the photo, changing it to black and white and adding a gradient effect to blend in the logo:

But this still didn’t make me happy. I had been trying to reserve some of the space to the right of the header image for ad placement, but I eventually gave up on that and commited to a full width image, something I thought would simply look nicer. The final design simply overlaid a cool panoramic image salvaged from the old site with the logo simply overlaid to the left:

Doesn’t look like much shrunk down here, so visit the new site to see it in all its glory!

I spent most of Monday this week on the road with Wesley meeting with new and existing clients. We managed to sign a deal with Elaine of Promoto Promotions to take over the site for her track. That will be our next big project. Right now we’re waiting for a data drop and access to the existing servers, but I hope we’ll have another great site to show off soon.

Also made a point of visiting an advertising client who Wesley had been meaning to check back with again for a while but could not because of his injury. It was a good 3+ hours in the car and I think he was a bit wore out by the end. I was suffering from a lack of sleep by the end there, too.

Still, a very productive day for us. We’ve got money coming in and the Promoto deal should go a long way to solidify our plans to create a network of track sites with which to promote the sport and sell advertising on.