So, what, it's been a year since I promised an overhaul of my site? It's finally here! I got a kick in the pants to finish up my templates and launch the site because the inaction was preventing me from producing any content. Part of what I had to overcome was seeing this site as a finished product and rather as a work in progress - so please excuse the funny looking search pages. I'm really happy about finally putting this up, dusting off the corners, and adding a whole bunch of new ways for me to consolidate my thoughts.
I approached the redesign from analyzing how I create content; I've never been a regular blog writer in the sense that I was dedicated enough to write every day. I tend to write epic blog posts every once in a while, but I had to admit that it wasn't something that I always enjoyed doing and that I had to feel "inspired" to reach the point of enjoying it - but not that I wanted to cut that out entirely. So those epic blog posts are still around under "Written", and may even have not-so-epic blog posts/rants in the future. But I knew that I had to figure out the other ways that I create content beyond what I consider straight "blog writing".
So I thought about it and I realized that I collect images. I take so many photos, I'm constantly looking for inspiration visually and I needed one place to gather it all together. I also wanted to set up a daily practice for myself, by choosing an image that felt appropriate in the moment and figuring out why. So this has evolved into the "Seen" section - the format is definitely inspired by sites like The Big Picture, The Sartorialist and ffffound, but it may morph into something else entirely as I continue this daily practice.
Another thing that I've been wanting to do forever was create a place where I could document my food experiences, mainly at restaurants, to share with others. I had created a map a long time ago on CommunityWalk, but it isn't flexible enough in terms of slicing and dicing the content, and besides the fact that I am not able to export any data out of the system, which irritates me to no end. So in the next few weeks I'll be copying and pasting all of that data out of the system back into my own site at "Eaten", and it'll be a great resource when anyone asks me where they should go for italian food.
I also needed a space for posting about art and design projects I have in progress or have completed. It's going to be more free form, a mixture of text and photos, and be both a documentation within the process of creating but then also cleaning it up into a coherent, discrete project. This will become the "Made" section, which is still in the works.
I also wanted the challenge of creating a site completely from scratch and trying out front end development techniques that I hadn't before - like using sIFR for titles and jquery for various user interactions. And if I can use this site as an experiment and let it evolve over time I can continue to try out newer methods (Typekit please!) and incorporate it into my everyday design practice. And it doesn't hurt to work on my MT templating skillz as well.
And lastly I knew that I wanted to tie in all of the "social" sites that I participate in already on the web, but in a way that made contextual sense rather than just throwing up a bunch of "actions". So bit by bit I'm finding ways to syndicate that content around the site that's appropriate to what I'm trying to do.
So take a look around and tell me what you think!
I approached the redesign from analyzing how I create content; I've never been a regular blog writer in the sense that I was dedicated enough to write every day. I tend to write epic blog posts every once in a while, but I had to admit that it wasn't something that I always enjoyed doing and that I had to feel "inspired" to reach the point of enjoying it - but not that I wanted to cut that out entirely. So those epic blog posts are still around under "Written", and may even have not-so-epic blog posts/rants in the future. But I knew that I had to figure out the other ways that I create content beyond what I consider straight "blog writing".
So I thought about it and I realized that I collect images. I take so many photos, I'm constantly looking for inspiration visually and I needed one place to gather it all together. I also wanted to set up a daily practice for myself, by choosing an image that felt appropriate in the moment and figuring out why. So this has evolved into the "Seen" section - the format is definitely inspired by sites like The Big Picture, The Sartorialist and ffffound, but it may morph into something else entirely as I continue this daily practice.
Another thing that I've been wanting to do forever was create a place where I could document my food experiences, mainly at restaurants, to share with others. I had created a map a long time ago on CommunityWalk, but it isn't flexible enough in terms of slicing and dicing the content, and besides the fact that I am not able to export any data out of the system, which irritates me to no end. So in the next few weeks I'll be copying and pasting all of that data out of the system back into my own site at "Eaten", and it'll be a great resource when anyone asks me where they should go for italian food.
I also needed a space for posting about art and design projects I have in progress or have completed. It's going to be more free form, a mixture of text and photos, and be both a documentation within the process of creating but then also cleaning it up into a coherent, discrete project. This will become the "Made" section, which is still in the works.
I also wanted the challenge of creating a site completely from scratch and trying out front end development techniques that I hadn't before - like using sIFR for titles and jquery for various user interactions. And if I can use this site as an experiment and let it evolve over time I can continue to try out newer methods (Typekit please!) and incorporate it into my everyday design practice. And it doesn't hurt to work on my MT templating skillz as well.
And lastly I knew that I wanted to tie in all of the "social" sites that I participate in already on the web, but in a way that made contextual sense rather than just throwing up a bunch of "actions". So bit by bit I'm finding ways to syndicate that content around the site that's appropriate to what I'm trying to do.
So take a look around and tell me what you think!
11:46 PM
a test comment!