Alec Bourgeois: Portfolio

Website Production/Art Direction

Fugazi Live Series

Lead Designer & Producer: Designed and managed all aspects of this major archival off-shoot of the Dischord Records website. From 1987 until 2003 Fugazi played over 1000 shows in all 50 states and all over the world. Over 800 of these performances were recorded. Each show is cataloged and presented along with relevant show info, flyers, photos, and a download of each available live performance. The design challenge was two-fold: 1) To present reams of archival information in a simple and intuitive interface that is as deep as it is easy to use. 2) To maintain the basic grid of the parent site while giving the Fugazi Live Site an identity befitting the band's iconic stature. Fugazi has always worked with bold images and deceptively rich but outwardly simple design elements. Bells and whistles have no place here. Ever. A simple font change and expanding the photo elements beyond the parent site's modular borders did the trick. The lead developer is Jerrod Blavos.

>> Visit the site

Read press features on this project in: The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR On Air Feature, NPR Blog Piece, Pitchfork Media, BBC Online, SPIN.com, and Wired Magazine.

Label Home Site/Store

Client: Dischord Records

Art Director & Producer: Oversaw a complete overhaul and re-design and of the site including the implementation of a state-of-the-art e-commerce system, a digital music delivery system, a news blog, and a custom CMS capable adding and editing content, controlling the inventory and the functionality of the store, and running sales and royalty reports. The main challenge as Art Director was to manage the diverse visual elements inherent with presenting the work of many artists in a unified and identifiable home environment without compromising individual identity or creating a confusing mess. As Producer I managed the creative and development teams, budgets and server-side delivery. The lead designer was Pau Santesmasses and the lead developer is Jerrod Blavos.

Website Design

Construction Home Website

Client: Beriato Gianluca Construction (Veneto, Italy)

Lead Designer: Designed templates and build-out for this Italian construction company. I thought it would be fun to use construction itself as the main theme of a construction website. I wanted to bring together visual elements that graphic design and construction have in common and immediately thought of the paintings of Mondrian. His works have probably had an even more lasting influence on architecture, design, and furniture making than they have on painting and I thought they would be a great well to draw from. The clients wanted their creations to be front and center and since there is very little text to contend with we decided to keep the layout wide-open with plenty of interplay between the photos and the structure of the pages.

Real Estate Sales Website

Client: Quadra Real Estate (Veneto, Italy)

Lead Designer: Designed templates and build-out for this Italian Real Estate company. Quadra is the sales wing of the Beriato Gianluca Construction company so I used the same underlying grid to keep continuity between the companies, but held back on some of the structural notes and lightened up the presentation with transparent elements. Both sites are still in in development.

Vacation Rental Property

Client: Private

Design & Development: Beach houses are generally utilitarian by nature. However, every so often you find an architect that has clearly taken on utilitarianism as a challenge and produced solutions that are both clever and beautiful. This beach house is a perfect example of what is essentially a kit house that also boasts a lovely mid-century modern design aesthetic. Rather than highlight a laundry list of mundane features that can be found in any rental property I thought the house itself, especially in this setting, was the best marketing device. The design offers a nod to the mid-century elements of the house which in turn helps to unify the page.

Black Cat Nightclub/Venue

Client: Circle I Productions

Lead Designer & Producer: Redesigning the website for the Black Cat was the final phase of my effort to unify the marketing theme for the club across all formats. I began with a single column layout that could be used individually as a strip or banner ad or joined with a modular elements to present a third, half or full-page layout. Black Cat has a strong neighborhood identity and the client was insistent that the design elements should compliment the true nature of the club. There is a sameness that comes with the web, especially when content needs to be swapped in and out daily. The challenge was to present the content that visitors expect while not bowing down to the boilerplate. The Black and White photos on the home page were the client's idea, and once they were up I had to tip my hat. Some day I'd like to see the site reverse its black and white scheme -- but that will take a better sell job!