Creative process: Step 1

Ok, so we (Val and Raj) started out with the most complicated concoction of our tastes and design preferences. Taking the core of the front page to be a photo of a blackboard with differential geometry (GR-related) scribbles on it -- we applied several filters to it and drew some lines and text around. The result is a tight-@$$ design on the right.

I greyscaled the main image (B&W being my favorite tone, orange is Raj's) resulting in an even more threatening look below.

Both designs were immediately rejected upon completion. They're more suitable for a law firm than an organization of loose physicists.

Creative process: Step 2

I think Raj was goofing off when he made that one. Light, filtered through stain glass in a church. Another good example of a website for a ... church, or a concert hall, or... well, definitely not for an association of crazy physicists.

Creative process: Step 3

What we have here is a failed attempt at a hint on HST images with top 3 CCDs missing, radially-bulrred gravity-related equations; as before, radial blur was supposed to represent gravitational lensing.

Looks like crap. At this point we've abandoned the basic design and took the most simplistic approach possible.

Creative process: Step 4

The most elegant things in the world are those with no unnecessary parts. So we came up with that last thing on the right. It lacks personability. The website is, afterall, is to represent mad scientists.

Design is rejected for lack of personability.

Creative process: Step 5

To add a feeling of a persona to the look, we took pictures of members' faces and stacked them in a 3x3 randomly-generated box, moved a few things around and added a microwave-treated CD-R to the top left corner. Sure, it isn't as complex as previous designs, but it certainly gets the point across.

Check it, yo!