New ChaseJarvis.com

5/11/2008 08:17:00 PM

If you're reading this in your browser, then you already know. If instead you're an RSS reader, then drop everything and come check out the new site. Click around and get some dirt under your fingernails - tell me what you think.

Also, bare with me as we'll be tweaking things here and there over the next week or two until we get it where we want it. Generally speaking, I'm really happy with my new skin. It's clean. It's comfortable. You'll also notice a lot of new work. This is the tip of the iceberg too - a lot more of that to come, a lot of additions and deletions to come, as well as some in depth commentary/discussion about it. Feedback on any and all of this is encouraged and appreciated.


Thanks to everybody back at the studio for their hard work in getting this sucker live, especially with all the road time we've had lately. Big thanks also goes out to our friends at liveBooks for doing what they do. There's no question they've got he best damn flash algorithm on planet earth for delivering nice big images quickly and cleanly.

Update: Huge thanks to everyone who is cruising the site and providing targeted feedback and words of encouragement. We've been addressing your thoughts and making progress. I'm grateful for all your wise eyeballs. Please keep sharing!



65 Comments:

Anonymous whoneedswhat said...

Wow. The new site is *really* tight. And the new work is even tighter !!

(never thought I'd be able to say that, cause it was so tight to begin with...)

Congrats!

9:01 PM  
Blogger Carson Blume said...

Yeah, it rocks, clean, fast, easy to navigate, about the imagery, everything a photographers site should be. Good work guys and gals, I was almost up there tonight at the CAKE concert but the trip got all jammed up!

9:10 PM  
Blogger Matt said...

Love the redesign Chase, looks like a tonne of work has gone into it.

There's some fantastic new images in your portfolio as well.

Keep up the great work, and keep up the blogging as it's making the photography world that much better.

Cheers
Matt

10:15 PM  
Anonymous Oscar said...

Looks really, really nice!
Sharp, KISS, and clean.

I'd have to suggest looking into the font available on the blog and the press pages. After checking it on Firefox, Opera and Safari, it looks a jagged and hard to read.

It doesn't relate to the other font on the site.

I hope its not just me.

Keep up the amazing work!
Cant wait to see the rest of the photo additions.

10:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Looks like your getting more artistic... Hope your able to focus the personal work & express yourself to enjoy it in the latter years.... why express a lifestyle culture that PR reps have invented & control.

11:06 PM  
Blogger METALLILAN said...

Great job Chase!

I think your layout is, in my opinion, the current trend that a lot of photographers are using to display their works.

Mine is quite similar to yours if not less advanced. =D

I still don't quite get how to design and code a Blogger page on a personal web host tho.

Cheers.

Azlan @ azeanic.net

11:07 PM  
Blogger Eric said...

Holy crap, you never stop moving, do you?

It's like you've reinvented yourself with a much stronger fine-art influence. Well done, and very interesting from the perspective of the rest of us who wanna know where the photography world is going.

11:08 PM  
Blogger Josh said...

I have to say that I am surprised you decided to join the crowd and use livebooks. Some nice work though for sure.

11:17 PM  
Blogger Robert said...

I probably can't add much to the comments already... your team and livebooks did a great job. Check Rebekah's profile... I'm sure she is goodess but did you mean "Style Goddess"?

11:17 PM  
Anonymous Bryan Aulick said...

I think most of us photographers struggle in some moments to find a reason to keep creating. Your work, which is innovative but substantive and pristinely edited, just inspired me.

11:21 PM  
Anonymous Joost van der Borg said...

Generally speaking: Nicely done. Nice layout, more information, better presentation. I would however suggest increasing the text contrast slightly, by using a slightly darker gray for your main text.
I need to concentrate too much on the text to be able to comfortably read it, and I'm 23 years old with good eyesight. Imagine what trouble some 55 year old client might have reading the text.

12:12 AM  
Anonymous Adam Swords said...

Love the new site design. I read through the whole thing last night and the new Staff videos are a great touch.

The new material from dubai is super cool too, as ever you continue to inspire!

Adam.

12:21 AM  
Blogger Jim Goldstein said...

Very sharp site Chase. The new work is great. I'm looking forward to seeing more. The staff page and videos are also a great touch.

12:49 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the itunes video podcast url is broken.

12:52 AM  
Anonymous Danno said...

Chase Jarvis = awesome.
Livebooks = not nearly as awesome.

glad you dig what livebooks has done for ya chase but personally livebooks is not as good as others have and still make it out to be. BUT with that said, if you're happy, that's all that matters :)


Rocksteady,
Danno~

1:13 AM  
Blogger Jenny Hill said...

Change is good. I like the clean pared-down style. There are a few inconsistencies in the position of the masthead / navigation from page to page (press and blog are out I think when viewed on safari).

I'd reshoot your vid. Its a little all over the place.

1:13 AM  
Blogger uwe.mayer said...

Love the new look and feel. Straight clean and fast.
The way your stile is developing is fascinating. Keep up this good work and I really appreciate what you're doing for the community.

Regards,
Uwe

1:41 AM  
Blogger Eric Schmiedl said...

@danno: Do you know of any other Flash-based portfolio systems that do image scaling as well as LiveBooks? If you look at Chase's site, you don't see any of the jagged edges that you see in, say, mine. (ericschmiedl.com, I use Autoviewer in a home-brew design) It's the one thing I can't stand about it, but I love being able to maximize image size for a given browser window. (not to mention the LiveBooks sticker price)

1:54 AM  
Anonymous Jon Leighton said...

Hey Chase,

The site looks great but the lack of contrast between the text and the background is going to be pretty problematic for people with poor eyesight. I don't find it great even with good eyesight!

Jon

2:16 AM  
Anonymous Jess said...

Love the new clean look!

A couple of broken PDF links on the PRESS page:
http://www.chasejarvis.com/pdf/20080120_AlaskaAirInsider.pdf
http://www.chasejarvis.com/pdf/photoworld_cn.pdf

Keep up the great work!

2:50 AM  
Blogger Alvaro said...

Great! Congrats to all, the old one was kind of cumbersome, I like that there is a mix between flash and html .

Will dig on it more soon, cheers

Alvaro

3:38 AM  
Blogger Chase Jarvis said...

Thanks for the feedback everybody - keep it coming. We'll be implementing/fixing a lot of this stuff over the next couple days and your eyeballs are helping out a lot. Really helpful!!

4:19 AM  
Blogger Chase Jarvis said...

@ Josh: great point. Here's my thoughts supplemented with those of a few readers. First, Eric nailed it... It's less about the crowd and more about big images, fast and smooth. On the design side, we've just gone super clean. Originally for me the design parameters at LB were too tight, but on reflection and on feedback from art buyers and creatives - it's about the photos. We were able to work with the LB crew to tweak things for our aesthetic. Overall experience/aesthetic is really important, but I feel like we were able to maintain that balance btwn good looking and good functioning. Still big benefit from LB's deep-linking, fast flash skills.

Thanks again for the feedback...Just my 2 cents for consideration - especially since I was in that boat as you before spending some more time with it.

4:25 AM  
Anonymous tony said...

Nicely done, very clean, but kinda typical for photographers (still good). I've seen many photog sites, and they all look similar.

Still...great job

4:27 AM  
Blogger Richard McDonald said...

Nice site! I like it. One thing, on your Projects page, you forgot an "s" on "Tous les jour". It should read "Tous les jours".

It's a daunting task to rebuild your website, but it appears that daunting tasks don't scare you much.

Btw, I really appreciate what you do for the photographic community, Chase. Keep it up, your work has inspired me to try stuff I hadn't even thought of!

5:31 AM  
Blogger Zydrius said...

why flash?

and more contrast would be nice too (my opinion)

5:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@ Zydrius: yes it's flash, but it's entirely deep link-able. You can link directly to any page or even photo. All the benefit, none of the drawback.

5:46 AM  
Blogger Michael said...

The new site is really great. Much cleaner and more organized. I also do like the bigger and of course new images a lot.

Thanks for the great inspiration.

6:14 AM  
Blogger Ryan said...

Really liking it Chase - clean & crisp w/some awesome shots to open it with.

Love the video mixed in at appropriate spots as well... nice work.

Great redesign.

- Ryan

6:32 AM  
Anonymous Dov Viramontes said...

Nice Chase! Your Livebooks layout is the best I've seen :-) The site feels more personal especially with your new images. I felt like I was there in the moment with your photos. As if seeing how you see the world for a few minutes. The big pictures helped. Made it a very hypnotizing and virtual experience. But maybe it's just cause I'm a dork and obsessed with photo?
Easy to navigate which I feel is the most important aspect of a website. I dig the staff vids. But the vid on you rocks. Made me crack up! Totally love the framing and blown out background.
A+
-dov
www.dovviramontes.com

7:33 AM  
Blogger Pro Photoman said...

Hey guys,

Have been a keen follower of your work for a year or so now and really like the new site (couple of typo's in there though...but hey!)

Keep up the good work pretty inspirational for a one man band (pro photographer) like me who is just starting out..

Cormac .
Dublin, Ireland

www.strikingimages.ie

8:03 AM  
Blogger Nicholas said...

I'm on board with the rest of the clean, crisp, easily navigable comments of everyone else. My only comment is to increase the text contrast, a bit difficult to read regardless of what browser I view it in.

Nice collection of new work and I'm very excited to see more of your work with film/video. I find as much inspiration from current photogs as I do from watching MTV2 on mute.

Cheers,
Nicholas

9:15 AM  
Blogger ali alriffai said...

It's cool, clean & I'm sure you can updated easily I was thinking to get this service from livebooks but I dropped my comments to your email please check it,
but now no excuse from updating :)

10:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Web designer, phone call, now. I know livebooks is simple but with it comes generic and that mindset will play into how you look into the images. Before I could flip through and think "this is Chase Jarvis and his work is amazing," now I flip through and I think "photographer #32948, that looks pretty cool."

10:21 AM  
Blogger j.w. ramp said...

I dig it.

The only thing I'd wish to be different would be the front page... think it's kinda odd how it scrolls through like four shots then stops on one... it's like i want to just sit and watch all the chasey goodness, but then it stops and i have to go to your portfolio to get another serving...
maybe if it just randomly showed one static image rather than four i would get the idea that i should move along elsewhere if i'm looking for more work.

12:20 PM  
Blogger JB said...

Love the new site and pictures!

1:06 PM  
Anonymous Saxi said...

yeah - the site rocks!...but it seems the podcast doesn´t work anymore...anyway - great new site!

1:15 PM  
Blogger Giles Farrington said...

Love the new site, you work continues to be an inspiration to all of us out here. You rock big time!!!

1:30 PM  
Anonymous Jason Lindsey said...

Love the clean site and updated portfolio. We just launched our new site today. I share your excitement. Keep up the Great Photos and Posts!

2:10 PM  
Blogger Dan said...

I like the new look. It's really clean and it has bigger images, and that's all that counts. A website is always a works in progress.

Some things to look at. Your html menu and flash menu has different font sizes. Also the html menu has rollover actions. Keep the rollover or take it out, but make the flash and html menu consistent.

Your fonts setting in the flash files change. Look at Chase, the text is clean and readable with wide leading. Look at Staff, the font is pixelated and the leading is small. It needs to be consistent.

Your site looks good. My thoughts are Livebook. They're a company that make good template sites for the average photographer. I would think that most designers and creative would wonder why use them? As you are a big professional photo studio. It's kind of like going to istockphoto for images. Talk about giving back, support the creative community and find a good flash/web designer to help you with your site. I saw that bullet on the right side of the screen and was like, "what, why use a template site."

But why pay a lot for someone to reinvent the wheel, but then why send someone around the world to take a photo of someone running, when You can take a photo of someone running in your own backyard.

I do think that site looks ten times better, Love the videos and the images looks great.

2:47 PM  
Blogger Jim Mercure said...

This post has been removed by the author.

2:58 PM  
Blogger Darien said...

It looks great! I especially like the video on the construction of the studio. I love that place!! It's cool to see how happy you all look towards the end of it.

2:59 PM  
Blogger Jim Mercure said...

Great inspirational new work!

The one small issue I have is there is no indication of where you are in the site.

I especially like the Steven's Pass section!

More L8r,
Jim

3:40 PM  
Anonymous Martin Fuchs said...

Hey Chase,
Congratulations to your new site. But to be honest, and please don't get me wrong, this comment has nothing to do with your work or you: I do not get the hype about Livebooks. Personally I think that the Livebooks template is far away from being great, the Livebook Flash sites might be fast when viewed in the US, whenever I view them in Europe Livebook sites feel pretty slow to me. It takes way to long until the thumbnails in the Thumbnail bar on the right are loaded and you can navigate to the next image... Just my 2Cents on Livebooks.
Other then that I am looking forward to seeing all the upcoming additions and tweaks to your site.
Greetings from Vienna,
Martin

3:53 PM  
Blogger Chase Jarvis said...

Just more praise and thanks for you all going thru the site and giving your 2 cents. We've got a list of updates that we'll be implementing on an ongoing basis for a few days - so keep your thoughts rolling in. Once that tweaking phase is over, we can start to talk about the real meat and potatoes - the pictures. How what and why.

WordemUP

4:21 PM  
Blogger Neal said...

Chase,

First of all, I love Livebooks. I have a Livebooks site myself and the amount of time that I had to spend to get the site editing, arranging and adding new content has been so incredibly small. (I am still working getting the site just right) So I am a little bias about Livebooks sites.
My only comment would be to remove the Information tab. Unless you want to go through and edit the metadata the only purpose it serves right now is to show that the photo is copyrighted. That information might be located somewhere else.

Neal Reiter

5:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

darker type! darker darker darker!!!!

e-mail address more prominent on contact page!

several typos!!!!!! which i have e-mailed to you using the link on the contact page.

awesome photos and enviable energy!!!!!!!!

7:34 PM  
Blogger Philadelphia Wedding Photographers said...

I think it's funny you did ads for both Apple and Windows!

8:38 PM  
Anonymous aaron said...

I jumped the gun and posted in the previous post.

I've been reading for a while, but am just now commenting/contributing.

I like the new work a lot. Thanks for sharing it.

Contact page = Office "house" I believe should be hours. :) One less to look for.

Best,
Aaron

8:58 PM  
Blogger Bryant Bell said...

I guess livebooks is still king! I'll have to get one sooner or later...

BB

3:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi!
I like this new version of your website. It's simple but much better then the old version.

Add mouse over effect in flash menu.


Reader from Czech Rep.

4:25 AM  
Anonymous Serge said...

Although I'm a regular visitor of your blog, I don't leave comments very often, but with your new design I couldn't resist leaving a comment :-) Very nice layout you have here, congrats!

7:39 AM  
Anonymous Sarah Rhoads Photo said...

Love the new look - sleek and fresh. I love the new images as well.

7:58 AM  
Blogger mhakola said...

The new site looks great. It's clean and moves pretty quickly. The only minor thing that stands out is that under Scott's profile "assistant" there is an "s" missing. (Oh, and that Rebekah is a "goodess" but someone already covered that.)

9:44 AM  
Blogger mtreinik said...

Congratulations for being featured on the PDN Photo Annual 2008 gallery.

The new site is a definite improvement.

One minor gripe: The print feature is not very usable, since you can't select the printer or any settings.

12:02 AM  
Anonymous Adam Stevens said...

Great site! fast loads and killer shots! One tiny note, some of the text is a bit hard to read (come on I'm only 32). Cream on white looks good on a shirt but it's a bit hard to read on the screen.

But that's the only thing. And I'm being picky, really I'm jealous. I would almost kill for the time and talent to put something together like this!

7:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The font is hard to read. This is what I see:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2100/2487527468_a545a8afc4_o.jpg

I found you and your work on the Strobist site many moons ago. Thanks for sharing and inspiring.
PhotoOle

10:58 AM  
Blogger shutterthink said...

First off, I love the clean look. I also love that you offer free downloads to print. Very unique.

One issue I did have was that I couldn't find any of your older work. If it is on there it is not easy to find. I like some of the new stuff but I thought at least half of the new stuff was a bit snapshot-ish. At least I was confused as to why it was one of only 31 images you chose to represent your awesome and extensive portfolio. It actually made me think that this was an art site or a new blog rather than your portfolio site and so I tried to find the old site and couldn't find it. I just know I didn't see one ninja and that made me disoriented ;)

-Nick

9:36 AM  
Anonymous Hashem said...

it's absolutely Fantastic , and best of all is the new work...awesome :)
truly inspirational.. makes me hold my camera and want to shoot.
i have a question.
is it normal to shoot around 200 frames and still find the results unsatisfying? i mean as Chase Jarvis what would you do to overcome the disappointment of not getting the shot you have in mind and off the standards you set for yourself ??
sorry for the long question but as an amateur I'm irritated by that and self censorship. thanks a lot for the visual pleasure and inspiration.
best regards from Egypt:)

8:21 PM  
Anonymous Pieter said...

Nice design. The pics grab all the attention.

Would love to see some more work in the portfolio though. Time...

8:53 AM  
Blogger Nick said...

I like your clean design... so much so it happens to be same as mine. However, I take dead things.. normally.
I have also just started a blog after seeing your video on blogging.
Thanks

Nick

5:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

love the new look, the livebooks part is cool, the only thing that is kinda out of wack is the comments section, takes you to a whole new environment that is detached from the cool stuff.

Cheers

Snorri Gunnarsson

10:38 AM  
Blogger shawnpix said...

Hey Chase, great new stuff. The new site flows well. It was a pleasure meeting you at NYPH. Too bad they kicked us out at the end though, haha. Take care and let me know if you make it back out to the NY or Boston area.

8:34 AM  
Anonymous JQ said...

Great site, Chase. I've just launched with Livebooks myself and seeing you using them gives me great confidence in my decision.

12:18 PM  
Anonymous Samar said...

Hey, I am a first time visitor so can't really compare.. but the video idea is great! Keeps people hooked!

8:07 PM  

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