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A Bridge Over
Troubled Waters
A Web site makeover for Aid4Teens.org by Gary W. Priester Dear Gary,Our Aid4Teens.org Web site has been online for over a year and
now it is time for a new look. We would be happy if you could give our Web site a "make over". I would like the site to be more oriented towards teenagers and maybe have some MTV kind of animated graphics.
Aid4Teens.org is totally oriented to helping teenagers and parents deal with the common struggles that teenagers have to experience in the "today's teen society". The Counselor's Section is designed to give
teenagers a picture of the volunteer Counselors who help them with their questions and their problems. The Archives section houses articles, and question and answer topics written by the Counselors and other
contributors. Over the past year, various volunteers have contributed content to different parts of the site and each page is different from the next. We need to organize all the parts of the site to make it look like
it is all one-in-the-same. Thanks in advance,
Christopher Hankinson Chris, you came to the right place. Although it has been
many, many, many decades since I was a teenager, my mind has never advanced much beyond 16 or 17 years. I even watch a fair amount of MTV. So I think I was aware of the look and feel that Chris was looking for.I
asked Chris to tell me a little about how Aid4Teens.org came about. Chris responded, "I have always wanted to help teenagers since I was little. I spoke with a public speaker one day, and he said the people who often
have had the worst life, are the ones that care the most. I have had a very bad life growing up, and I have experienced everything you can imagine. While this is not a happy subject for me, in a way it is good as I have
the personal experience and insight to know exactly what these young people are going through." Hankinson listed his goals as an teen help organization:
- Help teenagers, and parents overcome obstacles in life.
- Promote our web site nation wide. (We already have visitors from Australia).
- Become a non profit organization through the IRS and obtain our 501 c 3 license.
Good news – bad news 
The bad news is the previous Aid4Teens.org site is no longer online. The good news is Chris was able to implement the
NetObjects Fusion template I designed and donated pro bono to the cause. I say bad news, because I did not keep my original screen shots that I made before I started the
redesign process. Chris was able to send me some of the files including the masthead shown here and one of the several logos designed and donated to the site seen in the next paragraph. My editor, the excellent Mr. Daniel Will Harris, thought the original masthead
(shown in the last paragraph) had promise and liked its overall design. In giving me the assignment, he asked me to try to work with it and see if I could update it and make it
more colorful and youth-oriented. I said I thought I could do that.
It was not hard to see that the site had had several designers. Chris had pointed this out to me in the early
stages of our dialog together. The text on the masthead was trendy but not all that readable. The logo type shown above was readable but lacking in color. The chrome effect was cool
but lacked energy. My work was cut out for me. |
