Creative Credits
Web
Design: Waxcreative
Design, Inc., Emily
Cotler, Creative Director
To
report site issues, please contact
Photography: Photographs on this site were taken by Giuseppe Moscato, Bryan Derbala or Luca Vettori unless otherwise noted.
Copyright
This
site is protected by a double copyright.
This entire site: © 2010-2023 by Eloisa James. The design itself © 2010-2023 by Waxcreative Design, Inc. All rights reserved.
Your Right to Use the Site and Its Contents
This
Site is only for your personal use. You
may not distribute, exchange, modify, sell
or transmit anything you copy from this
Site, including but not limited to any
text, images, audio and video, for any
business, commercial or public purpose
without permission.
Besides being illegal, it isn't very nice
and Eloisa was never any good at sharing.
In fact, she gets homicidal (and litigious)
at the very idea. Thanks.
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Privacy Policy
Newsletter and Site News lists: All information collected from this site is used only by Eloisa. The e-newsletter list data is stored on Eloisa's site's server and is managed by her web design team and her Site News list data is collected and stored via the third-party Feedpress and managed by her web design team. It is not ever sold to a third party or made available for sale. The information collected, such as your email address, is stored in order for Eloisa to communicate directly with you. She may send you emails containing newsletters, promotions, and special offers. If you do not want to receive such email messages, you will be given the option to opt out or change your preferences. The opt-out opportunity is presented at the bottom of every Newsletter and Site News email (two separate lists) you receive. Clicking on that link will remove you from that particular list.
Ordering links: Please note that if you purchase a book through a link on this website or associated social media pages, your purchase will be handled by the vendor you select (e.g., Amazon, Kobo, Nook, Apple, Google Play) and they maintain their own separate information about you that is NOT shared with Eloisa.
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Analytics information: Eloisa and her web team may directly collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools and services, like Google Analytics, to help measure traffic and usage trends for her web pages, email newsletters, promotions, and social media connections. These tools collect information sent by your browser or mobile device, including the pages you visit and other information that assist in improving your user experience. This analytics data is collected and used in aggregate form such that it cannot reasonably be manipulated to identify any particular individual user.
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Instances where it may be required to share your information: Your information will only be disclosed where required to do so by law or subpoena or if there is reasonable belief that such action is necessary to (a) comply with the law and the reasonable requests of law enforcement; (b) to protect the security, quality or integrity of the website; and/or (c) to exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of this website’s users, or others.
Links to Other Websites and Services: Eloisa is not responsible for the practices employed by websites or services linked to or from her site, comment pages, or social media sites, including the information or content contained therein. Please remember that when you use a link to go from EloisaJames.com to another website, this Privacy Policy does not apply to third-party websites or services. Your browsing and interaction on any third-party website or service are subject to that third party’s own rules and policies. Eloisa and her web team are not responsible and do not have control over any third parties that you authorize to access your User Content. If you are using a third-party website or service (like Facebook, Twitter, Google groups, etc.) and you allow such a third-party access to your User Content you do so at your own risk. This Privacy Policy does not apply to information Eloisa collects by other means (including offline) or from other sources other than through EloisaJames.com.
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The Making Of...
Creating the visual look of eloisajames.com
by the Creative Director of Waxcreative Design, Emily Cotler
The creation of an author's website is a complex, creative task that takes months and a whole team to complete. Perhaps the hardest part of the design is creating a signature look—the visual landscape that gives a web visitor an instant feeling for the author and her work. Creating that look demands a meeting of minds between the author and the web designer. You can imagine how difficult that can be: an author's natural medium is words, but the designer has to turn those words into a gorgeous visual landscape, evocative and yet easy to use.
Eloisa's site was about as challenging as we have ever tackled. She didn't just want a new look for her site, she wanted it to invoke the ethereal, utterly romantic beauty she had seen in European fashion magazines. She wanted an essentially print feel in a fluid, web environment.
She sent three tearouts from a magazine. She loved the roses sewn on fabric in figure 1, and the "tissue-y" feel of Figures 2 and 3. We had something to work with—but then Eloisa threw me a curveball: "I want there to be an element of history... I don't know what yet, though." I shelved the question of historical detail for the moment, and started working with color.
We started by playing with flowers. We found a few gorgeous photographs of blossoms that were almost perfect, showed them to a photographer, Deborah Sherman, who then set up a custom photo shoot for us, setting the lighting in such a way so as to allow for a light and tissue-y feel. Her photographs (Figures 4 and 5 are just two of the many) were the perfect launching point for shaping the collage. Then one of Waxcreative's fabulous designers literally began painting with the images in Photoshop. In the end, there were over 30 layers of flowers and pieces of flowers and leaves. Figures 6 and 7 below show part of the collage with various layers turned on and off, and Figure 7 shows the main area with at least ten layers turned off!
The collage turned into a gorgeous swish of color and flowers set to catch the drifting romantic feeling of the tear-sheets Eloisa had found. Then we began to apply content such as Eloisa's name, her photo, and the navigation. One problem cropped up: in the middle of the collage, four of the layers transpired to look like a baby's bottom! See best view of said bottom in Figure 9. Notice on the final home page, there is no bottom, ah-hem.
We went through over 25 refinements getting the home page right. The treatment of Eloisa's name evolved from a flat state (Figure 8) with an added dimension I call a "pillow effect." The navigation was giving us a lot of trouble. Everything we did felt as if it were just sitting on top of this spectacular collage. Pretty, but un-integrated. And of course, the historical element was still missing.
I pressed Eloisa for more of her personal insight and vision on this elusive historical element (without her input we would have definitely come up with fantastic ideas, but we wouldn't have been budgetarily responsible). She shot us an email: "Could we do some sort of lettering like the old medieval manuscripts have?"
Um, can anyone say "out of left field"?
Eloisa led us to links on the web from the Duc de Berry's psalter from the high middle ages. And as luck would have it, I had additional images from that time period in several books in our studio as well. We began drawing vines. Many many vines. Somewhere around the sixth or seventh vine we landed on the style that solved our navigation challenges. Figures 11+12 show some early versions, including how we tried to create the navigation on a vertical pole. Finally we came up with the idea of the horizontal pole and voila! Our navigation challenge was solved.
Figure12
Figure
11 From there we wove vines, flowers, and bits of collage into a jewel-box of a website, one which maintains that all-important romance & history look and feel on every page, while marshalling the enormous amount of ever-changing content that makes up eloisajames.com.
We're so happy and proud to launch this site. If there's something you would like added to the site, please don't hesitate to contact us - Eloisa's site is always a work-in-progress. Enjoy!