The Knowne World Heraldic and Scribal Symposium is a annual conference of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a world-wide club comprising people who are interested in medieval research and lifestyle recreations as practical as possible (that's where the "creative" part comes in!).
The conference itself draws SCA members from literally all over the world. The Heralds in the SCA research, render and register armorial designs - coats of arms and study names (for period-style authenticity). It's a scholarly as well as a creative pursuit. The Scribes create documents and scrolls, and both are allied in the interest of research of tools and materials of the time, so that, when practical, SCA artist use the tools and techniques of the day.
The website (http://kwhss.sca.org) was designed with a straight-ahead, "just what was needed" style, which resultuled in a very basic website that depends on a background treatment and stylized header image to create a proper mood and attitude. The site's only real trick was to use CSS to style buttons. But its lack-of-unnecessary bells'n'whistles (and dead brilliant class schedule grid if I do say so myself) was a winner with its audience, who truly are a "just the facts, ma'am" crowd.
The conference itself draws SCA members from literally all over the world. The Heralds in the SCA research, render and register armorial designs - coats of arms and study names (for period-style authenticity). It's a scholarly as well as a creative pursuit. The Scribes create documents and scrolls, and both are allied in the interest of research of tools and materials of the time, so that, when practical, SCA artist use the tools and techniques of the day.
The website (http://kwhss.sca.org) was designed with a straight-ahead, "just what was needed" style, which resultuled in a very basic website that depends on a background treatment and stylized header image to create a proper mood and attitude. The site's only real trick was to use CSS to style buttons. But its lack-of-unnecessary bells'n'whistles (and dead brilliant class schedule grid if I do say so myself) was a winner with its audience, who truly are a "just the facts, ma'am" crowd.
Official header image for the KWHSS 2010 An Tir website.
The offical logo for KWHSS 2010 An Tir. The gold crossed trumpets are the Society-wide emblem is the College of Heralds. The red quill emblemizes the College of Scribes. The dragon's head symbolizes the hosting branch in the Kingdom of An Tir, the Shire of Dragon's Mist �" a local branch in Washington County, Oregon.
The front page of KWHSS 2010 An Tir. The navigation buttons are styled CSS - no images, no javascript. Just enough to make an engaging bit of navigation.
Bottom of the front page, with designer credit. All colored boxes (the blue colored notice up top as well as the yellow box on the bottom) are styled with CSS.
The top of the class listing page. Notice how the buff background and the styled header image are all that's needed to create an atmosphere of scribal arts - the Celtic-styled type makes a medieval statement, and the warm color reminds one of parchment.
Once again, no unnecessary bells, whistles, or frou-frou. Just enough to get the job done, which the audience appreaciated, and typographical hierarchy got the rest of the job done.
Once again, no unnecessary bells, whistles, or frou-frou. Just enough to get the job done, which the audience appreaciated, and typographical hierarchy got the rest of the job done.
A part of the class listings web page. It was decided that an element of information would be provided by letting the viewer know at a glance what discipline the classes were grounded in, therefore a color coding was impemented: Green for Heraldic, Blue for Scribal, and the buff background for common interests. This non-colored table cells were later changed to yellow.
Farther down the class list page: blue colored classes were grounded in the Scribal discipline, and the plain-colored class is of common interest. Anyone could take any class they were interested in, and the color coding helped guide the attendees toward the discipline they wanted to know more about.
The class schedule grid for Saturday. Once again, the color code system applies - are you interested in the Heraldic discipline? Scribal discipline? Both? You can tell at a glance. And, each class title links directly back to the class name, instructor, and description on the class listing page.
