My goodness, it’s been four years since I made my website and it has never been refreshed. I built it back when I first launched my business, but I always considered it more of an archive, a repository of everything I had ever done, on display sure, but really more for my benefit than anyone else’s.
I’ve worn a lot of hats in my life, and so there was all of my music from various bands I’ve played in, a collection of every story I wrote as editor of the ill-fated alt-weekly newspaper Birmingham Weekly, my graffiti photographs, concert posters and album covers, pictures of my cats, oh yeah….and lots and lots of design.
It was great! But funny enough, the busier I got, the less time I had to update it, and it got to the point where I hadn’t put new work on it in years. Also, it was aging tech-wise (though not too bad, if I do say so myself), and it didn’t serve what I do now very well anymore. Over the last few years, I’ve really focused my work into web design and development, and designing for events. I needed a site that showcased my work in those areas, and didn’t distract people with all of the extra stuff. One that went into much more detail about how I work, and made it much easier for me to communicate with folks who wanted me to do it.
So here we are! Welcome to my brand new website, I am so excited to finally show it off. I’ve been working on it in the wee hours of the evening/morning when there’s no other client work to do, and I hope you take some time to poke around and check out what I’ve done to the place:
Removed Content Unrelated to Design — As I mentioned, the music, editorial and photography have gone away so that design related work can shine through.
Updated Color Scheme — While I’ve kept the orange and neutral grey color scheme, I’ve tweaked it so that the colors are more harmonious when used in conjunction with one another.
New Typography — I love me some fonts! On the old site, I had a rotating header which displayed my name in a different random font every time you loaded a new page. It was fun, to be sure, but it made my brand a little…nebulous. It was hard to figure out what my “real” logo was. I’ve updated to cleaner geometric sans-serif fonts (Gibson and Proxima Nova).
New Logo — Speaking of logos, I’ve got a new one of those too. A lot of my design work is focused on distilling the essence and vision of a business down into iconography. I wanted a logo that was formed from simple shape and line, but which connected to a larger brand with some personality. I settled on the hexagon shape, which is both the structure of each letter in the logo, as well as the head of the little icon-me I have sprinkled around the site.
In-Depth Copy — While the old site had plenty of my writing on other subjects and for other outlets, it didn’t have much to say about me or the work that I do. It was pretty much a simple about page and not much else. That needed to change. My new copy dives deep into what I do and how I do it, so that you can get a good overview of what it would be like to work with me right out of the gate.
Tightened Security — I’ve learned a ton about securing my websites over the last half-decade, and I’ve implemented all that new knowledge on this new site, including a brand new SSL certificate. Google likes it, hackers hate it. Win-win!
SEO Out The Wazoo — I did zero work on Search Engine Optimization on my old site. Which was fine, I didn’t really need it to rank given it’s purpose. I do now, so I’ve put all my favorite SEO gnomes to work tweaking keywords and metadata so that I place as high in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) as possible.
Built A Blog — Since the old site was more an archive, I wasn’t worried about producing fresh content for it. Now, I want my site to be the central hub for peeps interested in my work, so I’ve got a new blog up and running where I can write about design and development related topics and discuss them with y’all. You’re reading it right now!
Added An Opt-In and Newsletter — I’m also really focusing on building my email list, and to that end I’ve added an opt-in for a free guide I produced, which you can get if you sign up for my monthly newsletter. The newsletter will contain recent blog posts, client highlights, news about what I’m up to and any other silliness I can think of.
Nice Words From Nice People — I’ve made websites for lots of folks, and some of them were kind enough to say great things about them. In the past I just soaked up the praise and let it be, but for the new site, I’ve put a few out there for you to see as well.
Whew! That’s about it. And don’t worry, I haven’t deleted all that music and writing from the old site, in fact I might hide it right here on the new one where those in the know can still take a peek (wink, wink). Let the treasure hunt begin! Seriously though, I haven’t done that yet. Or have I?
Speaking of music, let’s let the raspy voice of Tom Waits take us out on this one: