Jiujitsucalendar
Case Study
Client: Jiujitsucalendar
My Role(s): Designer, Developer, Data Architect, Copywriter
Featured Examples:
- Jiujitsucalendar Home Page
- Jiujitsucalendar Search Results
- Jiujitsucalendar Search Results Map View
- Jiujitsucalendar Calendar Page
- Jiujitsucalendar Event Detail
- Jiujitsucalendar Ad
This site is a searchable database of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu tournaments. It has numerous fun useful tools including numerous search methods (by promoter, by date and by a radial location search), a manageable calendar for registered users with the option to import the calendar into other ical readers like Google Maps or Apple iCalendar, and a map showing various data (events in a user’s calendar, search results, whole event database).
This site is probably beating the Battery Plant Database as the most useful site I have created so far, and we have several updates to the site’s functionality in the works.
This was a full-fledged design project for me. Apart from help from a couple open-sourced codebases (see below), I designed everything myself from the graphic design through the data architecture to the site’s code.
The visual design went through numerous drafts. The color scheme was based on the floor mats (tatami) used in many American Jiu-jitsu tournaments. Good old red[, white] and blue. The logo is again based on the tatami, namely the way several tatami are placed together to create the larger grappling area. The text section of logo uses Arial Black as the font. I created the banner ad from an image of the site owner in a tournament, did some effecting and (as a sort of joke) threw in the exciting splattery stuff in the background. I think it came out pretty well.
The site uses a few open source chunks of code for some of its heavy lifting, such as PHPICalendar for the site’s calendar interface and the Google Maps API. I custom-coded the rest (MYSQL, PHP, XHTML, CSS, ICS, XML), creating both a backend CMS and the front-end user interface, and it was quite a load to get through. I love projects that really make me learn, and this one really pushed me to expand my skill-set even further.
I am glad we finally got something up. Now it’s time for the analysis.
