The REMaking of the Ben Sherman Guitar Website

The new and improved Ben Sherman Guitar website just went live!  
It has been in the works for over a year.  I started my page designs in January, and then in March my health once again took a nose dive.  I did not have the energy to work on this huge project until this October.  So lately every moment we have had to sit side by side late into the wee vampire hours of our day, my hubby and I were cranking out each page and working out the bugs.  

As an artist I have to admit the inspiration for the makeover of the BSG website is due to two talented men.  The first is my loving husband, and my artistic Muse, Ben Sherman. Playing classical guitar, acoustic guitar, electric classic rock, jazz fusion, teaching and writing a book, his talent is awesome. I never tire of all the various ways I can showcase my Ben with my own artistic vision, whether it is by taking photographs at gigs, videoing him in a band, designing promo and merchandise, or creating artwork featuring the Shermanator!  So of course he deserved my very best effort when creating a website to promote his outstanding musical endeavors.  Unfortunately he had to wait out my health issues for most of the year.  Actually the delay made me revisit some of my early designs and make some revisions.  Artists are never satisfied.

I wanted to create for Ben a platform that expresses his commitment to excellence with a richly textured website full of images that would be a visual treat to the viewer.  So the second man who inspired the overall look of the website is Jerry Jones of Shadowhouse Creations, someone I have never met.  Jerry's texture collection constantly wows me, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to showcase what can be done with his textures.  Additionally Jerry's personal digital art gallery is stunning, and even Jerry's personal artwork certainly influenced two of the digital art pieces I added to Ben's new photo gallery.  You can see one I created at the top of this post. I truly hope you visit the Shadowhouse Creations gallery so you can enjoy Jerry's intriguing artistic world.  

Some of my website background designs for BSG were created using various Shadowhouse textures and then using Photoshop blend modes multiple times.  Other textures were used just as Jerry created them, as I felt they were totally captivating just as they were made.  Amazingly Jerry is a generous soul who gives you the use of his textures freely, as long as you use them in your artwork, do not sell them, or claim them as your own. Those of us who follow and respect Jerry are very protective of him ...so don't mess with his rules.  

When Ben and I created his former BSG website in 2008 I was just struggling to learn digital design on the little Paint Shop Pro that came with the computer.  I have learned so much since then about using Photoshop that I was very excited to dig into this website makeover.  Ben actually does all the coding for the BSG website so 
he is the one who makes the magic happen that I have in my head!  
We truly are partners together and that is so cool.  I guess you can tell Ben is my soul mate, and I am his number one fan.  Although 
Ben has some other long time music fans that would dispute that 
fact with me!  hah!

We added a beautiful new photo gallery and video gallery to the new website. In addition to gig photos, there are retro photos from Ben's musical past, (you know...the ones with the funny hair like below) as well as digital artwork I created for fun. (see the artwork at the bottom of this post) There are also newly released videos of Ben, including one I requested myself as I really wanted him to release the song called 'Cliffs Of Dover.' The Video was taken with Hectic Red during the 20th anniversary show.  This is the same song he was playing on stage the night we re-met and I had said to myself, 
"Oh yes he will be mine!" I just felt the connection to him immediately through his music.  It is the stuff of dreams.

 
The reason I have not been posting very much is we have been working our butts off on the new BSG website...  so I hope you will take the time to check it out! Let me know what you think!