The trouble with redesigning my website is that because I'm a graphic designer I can do as I please - there's too much choice. I guess it's like doctors being the worst patients or some such - I have to sit with a pencil and paper and pretend I'm my own client and try to think up words that sum up who I am and the service I provide. Tis a bloody nightmare! The ideas I get for my work with my clients are clear and true, but the possibilities for my own branding are so limitless, the ideas so many and so varied, that they clash and fight and it's a real struggle to get a clean, structured feel. I think I'm getting there, though - watch this space...
Another excuse for my tardiness is that I've been pondering upon the purpose of this blog. At first, as I'd so cleverly used time-consuming Flash to create the portfolio section of my website and then didn't have the time or inclination to update it, I took a blog on as a quick way to upload my newest work to teh internets so that the masses could continue to gasp in joyous awe at my opuses (opi?). But the blog is now wanting to be more than this. I find that, as in everyday life, I want to occasionally inform people of my opinion on a relevant subject. I get sent thought-provoking emails and think about publishing them; I get asked for advice by newly-qualified designers about how to get into the industry. Sometimes I might just want to publish a photo of a nice bit of architecture I see, or some clever design. This blog wants to be more of a diary - what goes on, what inspires and provokes thought.
So expect the following in the near future (I hope by the end of May, when my birthday is, should you wish to send me vintage Champagne and/or a new pair of hot pink Converse All-Stars (size 5, ta muchly):
- snazzy new website that will bring unconditional love and world peace to each and every one of us,
- advice blogs - how I got into the industry, went freelance, recommendations,
- more random photos of stuff I like,
- more vaguely-relevant musings,
- more short but frequent postings.
2 comments:
size 5? what are you, a penguin?
Quick bit of website design advice, with apologies for anything that's patronisingly obvious to you.
1. Usability is paramount - you are making an interface to an interactive computer program, not a brochure. I've lost count of the number of website deigns I've had to implement from print designers who've given me big bold illustrator or photoshop files, and they often look great, but don't translate easily, if at all.
2. Don't make a splash screen, or a huge header that people either have to click through or scroll down to get to your content.
3. use hyperlinks and cross reference stuff as much as you can (this is for SEO benefit mainly).
4. Provide a search box if you can. Potentially a bit more technical, this, but there are ways and means.
5. Dreamweaver is a different skill to HTML, and takes just as long to master. The two are not necessarily compatible.
6. Flash isn't search engine or mobile device friendly. Very few mobile browsers can view flash content.
7. Modern div/css approaches give user agents from googlebot to iPhone (and screenreaders for disabled users) the maximum flexibility in rendering your site appropriately to the device. It might not always preserve your meticulous design, but it gets your content out easily. Mobile is more and more important every day.
7. Use the W3C validators - but don't spend weeks slavishly getting them to pass.
8. If you want to do anything fancy with Javascript - popup menus or rollover tricks, use something like jQuery or prototype and use plugins from the huge community repositories for both - let them take the cross-browser strain, you *won't* want to do this yourself. I don't, and I can.
9. Test in all the main browsers - IE 6,7,8 for PC and Firefox, Safari and Chrome (which I think render equally on Mac and PC). Using XHTML Strict (by adding the XHTML Strict doctype as the first line of the page) can help. I have access to IE 6,7 and 8 on various PCs. Probably 5.5 somewhere too - but that might be pushing it. Let me know if you want screenshots. I think the iPhone uses WebKit, so it should render much the same as Safari, but I'm not sure. Have a look for sites and online tools that might help simulate an iPhone client.
This all sounds like a warning rather than an encouragement, really it's not meant to be. If you start the right way it'll generally be a pleasure. We're not *quite* there with standards etc across all browsers, but it's so much better now than it was. Sorry if this is old, or unwanted advice. It may also be largely irrelevant if you're just doing wordpress rather than using your own webspace, I don't know - I'm only trying to offer the sort of intro I think I would appreciate if I was starting out on something new myself.
Thanks Leon - all good stuff, was aware of a lot of it, but by no means all, & good to get an expert geek's advice. I'm not designing through Dreamweaver, but amending CSS in Wordpress which is a bloody dream to use. Got a great CSS book which flags all the bugs in different browsers and how to get round them. Flash is hella clunky and I won't be touching it with a bargepole again. Basically my previous site was designed a few years' back when I had a fragment of the knowledge I have now so there are lots of things I won't be doing again - having said that, I've had quite a few clients and potential clients say that they love my site because it's different. It's balancing that unique 'me' feel with Wordpress slickness that will be the *ahem* fun part.
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