launch
You know the story about the mechanic who never works on his (or her) own car? It's been quite some time since I paid attention to my own website. And here it is!
After several years of non-stop graphic design and other time-consuming projects, including a blog launch (more on that later), I finally bit the bullet to re-develop my own website. It took some time to settle into it and I have to admit I wavered back and forth about how I would construct it.
In the end, I chose to stick with RapidWeaver rather than develop in WordPress. I could have gone either way, and I did ping-pong back and forth for some time. But I found a responsive RapidWeaver theme I really liked, created by Elixir Graphics. I hadn't planned on creating pages or information that would require immediate updates, didn't think I would have an immediate need to blog or to blog much. Even though I have developed several sites in WordPress beginning with various themes, I found RW to be simpler and easier to use. Well, I did have a lot of catching up to do with RW. Things change! And I had been away from the RW platform for some time.
But here we go! After spending time debating the theme I wanted to start with, pros and cons, etc. I selected my theme. At this point, I felt like a totally new website was in order. This site has been stripped down quite a bit, and I hope to keep it clean, simple, and effective. I took time to play around with the themes offering, make color choices and adjustments, and learn more about the theme's basic capabilities. From there, I analyzed my current site (decided to get rid of much of it) and began to sketch out some ideas of what pages I wanted to include and then to drill down and decide what content I wanted on each page and how that might look.
I took some time to look through various design websites, which helped me to solidify what I hoped to convey on my own site. Then it was time to think over my service categories, write and edit copy, and begin the layout process. I look at this as a pretty circular process: trying new products and looks, creating and editing copy, playing around with the layout. Making changes to the master style of the site, changing that style on each page as needed…
I was not happy with results from a few different slider and list "stacks" that I had in my arsenal. I did some more research and chose to go with Elixir's Orbit stack for a simple slider that also has some neat effects under the hood should I choose to use them.
Initially I had made the decision not to add a blog, but after more thought, I realized it could be the perfect place to offer more of a "story" about specific projects and outcomes while keeping the remainder of the site clean and simple! Hope to post more projects in the near future. In the meantime, check out this article about a customized annual appeal that was created a while back for Reach Out and Read. It's been said that design provides a solution for a business problem, and I thought this would be a great first post.
After several years of non-stop graphic design and other time-consuming projects, including a blog launch (more on that later), I finally bit the bullet to re-develop my own website. It took some time to settle into it and I have to admit I wavered back and forth about how I would construct it.
In the end, I chose to stick with RapidWeaver rather than develop in WordPress. I could have gone either way, and I did ping-pong back and forth for some time. But I found a responsive RapidWeaver theme I really liked, created by Elixir Graphics. I hadn't planned on creating pages or information that would require immediate updates, didn't think I would have an immediate need to blog or to blog much. Even though I have developed several sites in WordPress beginning with various themes, I found RW to be simpler and easier to use. Well, I did have a lot of catching up to do with RW. Things change! And I had been away from the RW platform for some time.
But here we go! After spending time debating the theme I wanted to start with, pros and cons, etc. I selected my theme. At this point, I felt like a totally new website was in order. This site has been stripped down quite a bit, and I hope to keep it clean, simple, and effective. I took time to play around with the themes offering, make color choices and adjustments, and learn more about the theme's basic capabilities. From there, I analyzed my current site (decided to get rid of much of it) and began to sketch out some ideas of what pages I wanted to include and then to drill down and decide what content I wanted on each page and how that might look.
I took some time to look through various design websites, which helped me to solidify what I hoped to convey on my own site. Then it was time to think over my service categories, write and edit copy, and begin the layout process. I look at this as a pretty circular process: trying new products and looks, creating and editing copy, playing around with the layout. Making changes to the master style of the site, changing that style on each page as needed…
I was not happy with results from a few different slider and list "stacks" that I had in my arsenal. I did some more research and chose to go with Elixir's Orbit stack for a simple slider that also has some neat effects under the hood should I choose to use them.
Initially I had made the decision not to add a blog, but after more thought, I realized it could be the perfect place to offer more of a "story" about specific projects and outcomes while keeping the remainder of the site clean and simple! Hope to post more projects in the near future. In the meantime, check out this article about a customized annual appeal that was created a while back for Reach Out and Read. It's been said that design provides a solution for a business problem, and I thought this would be a great first post.
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