Why can’t my running shoes be more like my bike?
Pictured above is my beloved Swobo Otis. It is, I'm sure you'll agree, a handsome specimen of bikeitude. Its form perfectly expresses its function; nothing is extraneous. It is matte black. I have a lingering fear it is going to murder me in my sleep one of these nights, and I mean that in the best possible way.
My bike looks sexy and murderous. I understand that this may be too much to ask of my running shoes, but I would settle for them not looking like clown vomit.
Mission Statement
Ugh, another web designer with a blog: trust me, I'm right there with you.
Restless Bee 2.0
Put the work front and center
Sandy gave me this advice early on, and I wish I’d taken it to heart sooner. My last homepage had a tabbed module on the homepage for my featured work, but it (a) wasn’t big enough, (b) came beneath a whole lot of stuff, and (c) required the user to notice it and click on it to show more than one project.
Make it engaging
Have a voice
Marketing isn’t a dirty word
Like a lot of designer-types going into business for themselves, I started off very squeamish about the idea of marketing myself. Consequently, my last site didn’t do a great job of explaining why what I do is worth paying money for. In the months since I’ve started out, I’ve become much better at talking about what I do, and much more cognizant that, in a down economy, I need to convey the value of my services as clearly as possible. The idea of the Helpful Table was borne out of this recognition.
Wider isn’t always better
I designed my last site at a width of 960 pixels without really thinking it through—I mean, wider means more breathing space and allows for bigger screenshots, right? Well, yes, but I ended up feeling like the last design was too wide; something about it felt flabby and unstructured to me. So I reigned in the width a bit this time around, and learned a valuable lesson: just because 960 is the new standard doesn’t mean you should use it without thinking. Wide is great for content-heavy beasties like the uchicago homepage, but when you’re trying to have a tighter message and keep the user’s focus on one thing at a time, an overly broad canvas can work against you.
Fake Appreciations Post
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