The project began with the group in question: The Order of the Eternal Flame. This group preforms medieval combat reenactment with foam weaponry. The Order of the Eternal Flame (who commonly call themselves the OEF) are a local chapter resident to Rhinelander ,Wisconsin. They came with a logo already in use (which is my work of some years ago) and that needed to be taken into consideration as the project planning began.

This initial sketch laid out the rough idea and created a direction for some research into early medieval tapestry, illumination and wall decoration that would be used later to create the initial art that would appear on the website.

As this art was developed a few new considerations came into the thought process. The first was that too much width would lead to difficulties with narrower browsers. While wide screen is becoming increasingly more common the generally lower-income area around Rhinelander includes a great number of people that do not frequently invest in necessary newer technology. Many of the computers in use by OEF members are older and do not possess wide screen monitors. In accordance the content area was kept appropriately narrow. additionally, the decision was made to abandon the two column design in favor of placing the latest news at the top of the content area, and the content information for realm leadership at the bottom.

The next phase was the first in which code was created. This was done through photoshop's very handy slice function. The image created in adobe illustrator was imported into photoshop and sliced into pieces. Then code was constructed using modern code practices. At this point the background was switched to black, to match the black field the phoenix and banner have on the field of the OEF banner. The font slection process was done carefully and involved a return to the roots of the art style and the group itself. This led to a choice of a very medieval illumination typeface.

At this point the OEF Project is still unfinished, and in accordance, this documentation is incomplete. More information about this project will become available as the project gets wrapped up.

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