IDENTITY / UX / VISUAL DESIGN / CREATIVE DIRECTION

2015
MI-TAKA
VALIVAL Digital Agency

Mayaeye mountain photography

It was a pleasure to work on the new version of the web site of my talented friend – the mountain photographer Maya Karkalicheva. The website has an adaptive design and looks, both for mobile device & big screens, making your browsing experience a magical and fascinating journey through the mountains of Bulgaria and around the World. While designing the website and logo for Maya, these landscapes have taken me away from the busy everyday life fulfilled me with lots of emotions and inspiration for some of my future mountain adventures.

VISIT WEBSITE

The Logotype

The idea behind this logo was very basic – to deliver symbol and text combination which are beautifully simple as simple is the joyful feeling that you are alive when you are in the mountains. Nothing more, nothing less… 
Oh, and yes, It must remind of an eye (or a camera lens) (;

Putting the user at the heart of mother nature.

When designing the website, Maya had a requirement – she wanted me to make the viewer feel like he is there – in the middle of this mountain scenery. For me, the natural way to make this happen was to present each photo on full screen, keeping as minimal the navigation and design elements over it as I can.

As the website’s photo database supposed to grow through the years I had to think forward with a vision of what’s going to happen when the image numbers increase dramatically. So, I’ve made a highly flexible and customisable filtration for this big image DB which today allows Maya to create or remove categories and add custom filters, all by herself. 

Later, in a conversation was born an idea to enable the option for users to order their favourite images printed on canvas, posters, postcard, etc. and for agencies to buy images in big pixel resolutions for various advertising purposes.

Small screens, big images

The website version for mobile devices was quite a challenge, as most often the aspect ratio of Maya’s images is different from that of mobile devices’ screens. Still, I got a good result, and those of you who view the site horizontally on your mobile devices will be able to enjoy it even better.

© 2024 Dimitar Nikolov. All Rights Reserved! Design: Dimitar Nikolov   Coding: Polina Soboleva