Fishbucket - Blog

A year or two ago I had an idea… wouldn’t it be fun to make a webpage that works like the cover of Led Zeppelin III, where you can turn a wheel and the imagery changes? I had that idea rattling around in the back of my head for a while, but wasn’t sure where I’d be able to use it.

One music-related project came up last year where I considered using it. I worked up some comps, started assembling the wheel, but then set it aside before even showing the client, because it just didn’t fit with the project. I briefly considered it for another client a few months later, but decided against that one too.

So somewhere in the early days of 2017, it hit me – hey, I should just do that for Fishbucket. And then, I excitedly set off on this project. The result of OPERATION LZ3 is over there on the homepage.

The wheel on the inside is made up of imagery from Fishbucket projects, personal artwork, and a few things that never saw the light of day. The cover contains a bunch of sketches – including initial ideas that turned into some of our favorite work from the past 15 years. Sketches and plans on the outside, enveloping an explosion of color and imagery on the inside.

At some point I’d love to do some mini posts exploring parts of this wheel, explaining what came from where. Nudge me on twitter or facebook or comment below if you find something you’d like the back story on.

Thanks, Friends!

December 11th, 2005 – the day we launched the Billionaire Boys Club site. Back in the days before the iPhone, when websites were heavy with Flash and nobody was looking at the internet on their telephones!

For today only, we’re bringing back the classic rocket spinner on the homepage, and they’re offering a 20% off coupon code all day.

We’ve been lucky at Fishbucket to have such great clients, and this decade of working with BBC has been awesome. Big thanks to the whole BBC family, especially Loic and Mimi!

Here are some views of that original site…

shop.bbcicecream.com

We’re one month away from the ten year anniversary of the launch of the original Billionaire Boys Club site. And today we officially relaunched the web shop on a new platform (Shopify) and relaunched the NYC Flagship store with a new Point Of Sale system (Shopify POS.)

I spent the last two days at the store, overseeing the switch. A few migration issues aside, the transition has been smooth and the store staff seems very happy with the new system. Previously the physical store was on System A and the web shop was on System B, and we had Some Other Thing sitting in between the two, trying to force these two unrelated systems to work together. Now, on Shopify, the physical store and web shop can share inventory seamlessly. It’s a whole new world!

lizmiele.com

I was talking to Liz Miele a few weeks ago about redoing her site, and she had the nerve to suggest that we’ve been working together for a decade. That sounded crazy, but I checked back and – sure enough, our first meeting was in the summer of 2005. (Back in the days when people looked at websites on computers, not on telephones!)

So, it was about time for our longest-running Flash site to take its final bow and ride off into the sunset. Today we relaunched Liz’s site for the post-Flash world. (But if you’re feeling nostalgic, and haven’t removed Flash from your browser, you can still view the 2006 and 2010 sites. They’re still fun!)

It’s been a busy October at Fishbucket! Here’s what we’ve been up to…

Raury

weraur.com

This young man has some talent! His new album is really interesting and different, and he performed in the first month of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show. It’s exciting to work with a new artist who’s on the way up. We did a quick little two-pager for him, on a site that’s expected to evolve and grow.

Big K.R.I.T.

bigkrit.com

We’ve been working for KRIT since early 2012. Earlier this month we gave his site a full update to reflect the style of his new release (using artwork by the great Growing Pains Studios.)

DJ Premier

premierwuzhere.com

Also this month, we refreshed the look of DJ Premier’s official site, Premier Wuz Here. We reworked the navigation, added a tour page, and gave the site a new tan look for the fall. (And also managed to catch PRhyme when they performed in NYC, which was great.)

Vashtie

vashtie.com

This spring we redesigned Vashtie’s site with a fresh new look. Losing the purples and fun characters from the previous versions and going with a simpler, responsive style. After a few delays and tweaks, we were happy to finally relaunch the new design this month. (But a version of the old animated scene is still available if you’re feeling nostalgic!)

Kirk Knight

thekreeper.com

This is a one-pager for Kirk Knight of the Pro Era crew. His debut solo album drops at midnight tonight. The design came to us from his label and we handled coding and responsive-ifying. (And check out that subtle flicker!)

Phew! Can’t say this is all we worked on this month, but this was the bulk of it. On deck for November is a brand new site for comedian Liz Miele and the long-awaited refresh of the Billionaire Boys Club shop.

Onward!

There’s been a lot of interest and nostalgia going around twitter about the old Star Trak site (largely thanks to the Fader article) so I dug back in the archives, and look what I found!

Great article in The FADER about the old Star Trak forum, which we launched back in April 2002. (Huh? 2002? Did I read that right?) That forum was straight up crazy at times, but it turns out a lot of future big names in hip-hop were on there, collaborating and inspiring each other.

Article link: How The N.E.R.D Forums Low-Key Invented The Rap Internet

Yessurr.

www.nyrb.com

Last month we relaunched the shop for New York Review Books, which is the publishing house of The New York Review of Books. NYRB was running on some awful e-commerce platform, which seemed to be nothing but headaches. So they were very excited to switch over to Shopify.

We’ve set up a bunch of different shops now, but this one let us dive deeper into metafields than any before. (And this sentence about metafields is probably more than most people ever wanted to hear about metafields, so let’s just leave it at that!)

The NYRB crew seems very happy with the change. The site is now easier for them to manage and easier for their customers to deal with.

But don’t take my word for it… (haha I’m full of old book references here!)

Side note: yes, after writing the title above I totally had to go back and look this one up. YOU’RE WELCOME.

We were surprised and honored today to hear that Fishbucket was featured on Complex’s “Who Makes Your Favorite Artists’ Websites” list.

Funny that they called out Kelis, which was over a decade ago, but kind of fitting since that was one of our big sites in the early years. From Kelis in 2003 to Pro Era in 2014, it’s been a wild ride and it’s great to get some random recognition for it.

A new site for the biggest name on our client list will be launching in the next few weeks, so stay tuned. We’re not done yet!

We first hooked up a site for Joey Bada$$ and the Pro Era crew back in October 2012. Today we relaunched the site with a new look, based on designs from Pro Era and Knowuse.

pro-era-14
TheProEra.com →