When (If) I Decide to Redesign...
February 09, 2005 | 
13 Comments
…I’m starting over.
It won’t actually be a redesign. It’ll be something like “Asterisk, Chapter 2” or something. I don’t plan on erasing Asterisk, I just have this incredible urge to build something new from scratch. New categories, new design, new everything…or almost everything. I may not bother rebuilding the Song of The Week, and I’ll want to keep that going.
But, yeah, I think I want to cut all the old entries off from the new, archive them and start an (almost) whole new blog. And I’ve got lots of ideas. Some day soon I hope to take it on. Well see. Some things I’d like to do:
- Create a hub for all my various networked application stuff. I want to pull Flickr, Del.icio.us, my Upcoming.org calendar and all that stuff into one place.
- Post on a much wider range of topics.
- Post more photos and artwork as content.
- Get clearer and cleaner.
- Lose some of the extras.
- Have more fun with it. Experiment a bit.
Filed under: News
Comments
1. monkeyinabox said:
More bling is always a good thing. :)
Posted on February 9, 2005 04:28 PM | #
2. Brandon said:
I know how you feel, Keith. It’s nice to start something from the ground and build up with a bit more knowledge under your belt. My friend wanted me to build her a website, so I’m getting to do something creative. I’m excited about that. I know what works, and I know what doesn’t .. somewhat.
Good luck. Can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Posted on February 9, 2005 04:56 PM | #
3. JD said:
How about re-designing while blogging about it simultaneously? Say a post about color selection, post about how navigation will look like, why particular CSS hack was preferred over another. If you can do it that way, it will be great for us! And even if you don’t do it that way, I would love to see a re-design from you! :)
JD
Posted on February 9, 2005 05:07 PM | #
4. Jonathan Snook said:
One of the things I’ve tried to do to resist the urge to do a full redesign is to continually tweak the design. In fact, just today I added a new intro to the home page, tweaked the style on the comments, and adjusted some content in the navigation. It’s the web, right? “Under Construction” is what it’s all about.
Posted on February 9, 2005 06:26 PM | #
5. Mahi said:
Oh great, just when I get to feeling like I can start building my page up to have the design magnificence of Asterisk you go and decide create a chapter 2.
I can’t wait to see it.
Posted on February 9, 2005 06:29 PM | #
6. Dave P said:
Keith I’m with JD on this. What you did with the Designing the Band series was great, how ‘bout a “Designing the Keith” series… if you have the time, of course.
Posted on February 9, 2005 10:29 PM | #
7. Lars said:
Why not different weblogs for the different types of content? You could still have a hub of sorts, to pull (partial) content from the different publications.
This would give you plenty of new designs to tinker with, plus, more importantly, every weblog would be optimized for its type of content.
Posted on February 10, 2005 05:03 AM | #
8. Simon Jessey said:
Is this going to be an actual build, or is it going to be another Movable Type derivative? I have only ever blogged with self-built systems, and although I don’t enjoy the power and plug-innery of publishing tools, I am free of all the horrific spam attacks that everyone seems to suffer from.
Posted on February 10, 2005 05:49 AM | #
9. jake said:
Keith,
So you’d do something like, 7nights.com/asterisk2/?
I think it sounds like a cool idea. I have to concur that having a “Making Of…” would be nice. But I’d say even just getting periodic updates when you turn major corners would be nice.
Maybe you could even build it with Wordpress or Textpattern. ;)
Good luck!
Posted on February 10, 2005 08:25 AM | #
10. Keith said:
You guys have some great ideas – If only I had the time, could clone myself, hire an army of code minions…
I honestly don’t think I’m up to another “Designing The Band” thing. That was ALOT of effort and it wasn’t even a real project. Also, I’m not all that interested in learning (or creating) another system. I know MT really well and I’d really like to focus my creative efforts on the design and content.
I do like the ideas though…just being realistic. Heck, I don’t even know when I’ll get around to this stuff. I’ve got a few nice ideas, but it seems a bit daunting right now to get going on them. I may start and just take my time. If I do that maybe I will try to offer previews and peaks with commentary.
Who knows…
Posted on February 10, 2005 08:58 AM | #
11. Conann said:
Change is good! I have learned alot from this site as it is. I just moved from Movabletype to Drupal for my seldom updated low traffic website and I like it alot. Its PHP based and produces nice XHTML transitional/strict, image galleries are a synch and there are so many people working on modules if there is something you you need there is a great chance someone else has already got most of the way there. PHPTemplates are the simple and can be applied on a per-section basis. What I like most about it is the s-pa-m module which has stopped the comment BS I was pained with.
Posted on February 10, 2005 01:35 PM | #
12. Designer said:
Get rid of that background while you are at it :)
Posted on February 16, 2005 02:08 PM | #
13. Keith said:
Designer – Funny guy. The background is hard to shake, trust me, it didn’t used to be part of this design, my readers demanded I put it back. But yeah, it’s not going to make the cut.
Posted on February 16, 2005 04:01 PM | #
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