Friday, January 8, 2010

Lil Suzy's Paradise: NINE YEARS!

Hey everyone!

Today marks the 9th Anniversary of Lil Suzy's Paradise, the website of Lil Suzy! The site was launched on Janauary 8th, 2001 as a fansite, and eventually became Lil Suzy's official site.

Back in 2001, myspace, facebook and all of the other social sites that now occupy most music artists internet presences, were a thing of the future. The only place where one could get the 'goods' on their favorite artists were on official websites or fansites. The great response we received by many of Lil Suzy's fans on this new fan site came as no surprise as it was the only place on the internet where one could catch up with their favorite freestyle diva at the time. Now we have the myspaces, the facebooks, the twitters, the this that and the other thing on the internet, but back then, we were it.

The site has changed dramatically over the years. It started as a small little fan site with a few pages tributing Lil Suzy to being chocked full of pages containing everything anyone would ever need to know about her. From lyrics, wallpapers, banners and photos, it became your one stop Lil Suzy destination and was wall to wall Suzy. If you have followed the site over the past nine years, you were certainly 'in the know' when it came down to Lil Suzy (the artist) and Suzanne (the person). Everything from Lil Suzy's latest news, music, photos and performances, to Suzanne's engagement, wedding and babies were covered. Last year we changed our url address (again) and re-created the site to make it easier to 'post', giving fans the latest in everything 'Lil Suzy' at a quicker pace.

We can't believe it's been nine years since the creation of Lil Suzy's Paradise. It was truly an honor when Lil Suzy decided to make this little fan site, her official website. Never in a million years, when creating the site in the fall/winter of 2000, would we have thought that Lil Suzy would want the site to be 'official' ! And never in our thoughts or dreams did we even think we'd ever have the pleasure to meet her or even become buddies! That being a great honor! Because of this site and Lil Suzy, we have had the pleasure of meeting many great people (online and off), some who have also become buddies. One of those people being Angel (the Original Cover Girl), which resulted in us creating a little fan site (Angel's Place which became CoverGirlAngel.com) for her as well!

Lots of great little opportunites have surfaced because of what was once just a little fan site. Who would have thought that we'd ever design the cover art for Suzanne's digital single "Dance Tonight"! That was a great surprise because initially we only designed the cover and ads to promote the song on her myspace. We then emailed the artwork to Lil Suzy and her manager Latif, so they could see what we were going to post on myspace, and so her manager could use it for his sites as well. In the meantime, the artwork became our design for the newly revamped Lil Suzy's Paradise. Then to our pleasant surprise, Lil Suzy emailed us and told us that she decided to use the artwork as the cover art for the song for its online release on itunes, amazon etc! That was really exciting because our work was now on online music store sites! We were and still are very flattered and honored to have our design be a part of Lil Suzy's Discography. Thanks Suzanne!

We'd also like to thank Suzanne for all of the compliments on the site over the years (we do it for you babe!) and for being such a sweet person! You're the best! We'd also like to thank all of her fans for all of the great things you have said about the site in the past and of course for always supporting our girl.

Lil Suzy is also thankful for each and everyone of you for all of your loyal love and support over the years and support of the site! She loves her fans very much!

It's been 9 fast years and we're looking forward to many more years of "Suziness"! As always, we want to thank you all for visiting. God Bless and may 2010 be a great year for you all!

Freddy and John
LSP webmasters

__________________________________

SCREENSHOT MEMORY LANE:

The past has come back to haunt us! It's been nine years since the launch of Lil Suzy's Paradise and not only have we changed our URL address over the years, but the site has undergone some drastic design makeovers as well. Below is a trip down memory lane of some of the 'looks' of Lil Suzy's Paradise past.  Enjoy your trip. Click screenshots to enlarge.


January 2001 - Mid 2001
A screenshot of the original design from 2001 was never taken, so the one above is an incomplete recreation of what it looked like.  That is why the page is mostly blank.  When we designed this,  we had never created a website before and learned how as we went along. We also had no clue that purple was Lil Suzy's favorite color! A few of the other 'early' short lived designs from 2001 were never 'screenshot' so they are gone forever.  But most of the site designs are below. There was one short lived design where the 'News' page title was 'Eye on Suzy News and Updates' lol.  

Mid 2001 - June 2002
Lil Suzy's maiden name of Suzanne Casale in the banner!

 June 2002 -  March 2003
We incorporated Lil Suzy's real name into the banner again.

 April 2003 - July 2003
Used to love those "Lil Suzy" name scrolling animations!

 July 2003 - October 2003
Gotta throw in that purple! Loved those icons!

 October 2003 -  December 2003
No purple in sight! Sorry Suzanne lol.

Holidays 2003
A Winter Wonderland!
Just realized that 2003 was a busy year when it came to site makeovers! lol 

 January 2004
This design was really short lived and was up for only about a few weeks.

 January 2004 - October 2004
The "Enter" Page. One of our favorite designs. Complete with the return of 'purple'!

 January 2004 - October 2004
One of our faves! This design was lost before we could take a screenshot but we 'recreated it' using the original artwork soon after.  It contained one of our favorite banners!

 October 2004 - July 2005
We always tried to incorporate different shades of purple in the design someway or another.

 Holidays 2004
So Christmasy!

 July 2005 - January 2006
The "Enter" page.  The screenshot above was from the web software we used. Not from the web. That's why it has those strange little boxes around the page.

 July 2005 - January 9, 2006
  The screenshot above was also from the web software we used. 
That's why the the animations of Lil Suzy pics and the name scrolls look distorted... No, it didn't look like that online at the time folks lol.

January 9, 2006 - December 17, 2008
One of our favorite "Enter" pages! Animated and complete with background music!
  
 January 9, 2006 - December 17, 2008
We started using a new web design software with this one. One of our favorite designs! Maybe that's why it was our  longest running design online.

December 17, 2008 - May 14, 2009 
A new "Enter" page. We liked this one alot! Sparkly!

December 17, 2008 - May 14, 2009
Another fave! Short lived though.

May 14, 2009 -  
A newly revamped blog style site that is easier to manage, maintain and update! Complete with our "Dance Tonight" color scheme :)  Hey, where's that purple?! It's on hiatus. lol

Well there you have it folks. Lil Suzy's Paradise through the past nine years. Thanks for always visiting and supporting the site through it's many different incarnations. 
Share |

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...