I launched this site last night. Anthem Sandwich shop. A punk-rock themed deli located in Denville New Jersey, it’s guaranteed to be the most badass sandwich shop this side of the Hudson. Owner and chef Tom Pollio is simply not to be fucked with in the kitchen.
Design-nerd things learned here:
- @font-face sucks. The world isn’t ready. Could be awesome, could be wonderful, but failed in the browsers I wanted to support for this site. I tried it out for the menu and contact headings but image replacement still won out in the end. Also, most free fonts are very poorly constructed and render terribly browser to browser.
- Fireworks rocks Photoshop at saving PNGs. By simply opening my PNGs, tweaking the Optimize palette and resaving from Fireworks I typically saw an 80% reduction in file size. Well worth it; this site relied heavily on the file format.
- Keeping the design feeling grungy while still selling sandwiches is a tough aesthetic. Keeping the colors warm definitely helped with this.
- I really like the single page trend. I definitely see it gaining a lot of traction for small businesses in the future.
Anthem should be open within the next few weeks. So if you’re in the Denville area be sure to stop by, check out some Rancid and Social D posters and let Tommy kick your teeth in with his short rib grilled cheese.
