Reinvention Archives

Reinvention: Django A Go Go

June 26, 2006 | 13 Comments

This is the fifth in a series of posts documenting and exploring my online reinvention. See this post for more.

What’s gone before

• I’ve decided to lay Asterisk to rest.
• I’ve set down some goals for what I want with my new site
• I’ve tossed around some ideas
• I outlined my goals (split into three groups; content, technical and creative)
• I’ve talked a bit about the specific “features” I’m looking to include
• I’ve shown you some of my creative process
• I talked about my reservations with my new design

Going forward, with Django

I’ll keep this short. Since we last spoke I’ve decided to do two things:

• Move forward with the new design. I’m going to try and work out the kinks and make it great. If I fail I’ll just redesign. ;0)
• I’m going to build my own CMS with Django. I realize this is a bit of a risk, but I’m excited about the attempt. Sure this’ll make the project drag a bit, but it’ll be loads of fun.

I hope to have a bit of time during a simply CRAZY month of July to work on this and my goal is to have something live soon. Until then, enjoy the sun.

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Reinvention: Slow going and second thoughts

June 21, 2006 | 7 Comments

This is the fourth in a series of posts documenting and exploring my online reinvention. See this post for more.

What’s gone before

• I’ve decided to lay Asterisk to rest.
• I’ve set down some goals for what I want with my new site
• I’ve tossed around some ideas
• I outlined my goals (split into three groups; content, technical and creative)
• I’ve talked a bit about the specific “features” I’m looking to include
• I’ve shown you some of my creative process

Slow going

This site is taking me forever. I’ve got my designs worked out (more on that in a second) and I’m in the process of chipping away at the templates. It seems like I can’t find the time to just sit down and knock it out.

At the same time I’ve been working on nailing down a CMS. I’m really leaning towards hacking up some stuff in MT again (although the new site should be much less complicated than what I’ve got now) but I also really want to try something new.

It all comes down to time.

Second Thoughts

In the last week or so I’ve had some serious second thoughts about this whole project. There are a few reasons for this but what strikes me as the most important is that I’ve got reservations about the design itself and how its executed.

I like it personally, and the feedback I’ve got from the people who’ve seen it has been good. However, I’ve developed issues with it. I’m no perfectionist, not by any stretch, but…well, let me explain.

I feel like what I’ve got now, with Asterisk, is pretty darn good and design-wise I’m happy with it. I can see a few things I’d like to improve (I don’t believe any Web design will ever be perfect) but I’ve really got what you’re seeing down to it’s essential core. Then again, I didn’t do this because I disliked the current Asterisk design.

Anyway, the new design, while much more expressive and fitting of my personality (which were my goals going in) is also less effective in several ways.

• It’s got unnecessary elements. Mostly things that I, personally, find aesthetically pleasing. In that way it’s somewhat gratuitous visually. Not too bad, but…
• It’s not as cohesive from the homepage in. Meaning the homepage is tighter than the content pages and I’m not sure it’ll flow well as is. It’s a design problem I’ve not been able to solve and I’m not sure I want to compromise on it. I also don’t want to go back to the drawing board.
• From an information design perspective it’s not quite as clear what’s important. This is sort-of by design as I’m splitting my focus content-wise, but I’m not sure I like how it all comes together.

Now I realize that this might be a by-product of having worked on it for so long — it’s been slow going from day one. In addition it could be I’m simply being overly critical. I’ve been reading all sorts of great books on design the last year or so, and learning a lot, but it’s had a side effect of making me a bit more critical, especially of my own work.

It could also be that I’ve been doing much more client work of late and much of that doesn’t come out the way I’d intended. Dammit if I’m going to let something I’ve got full control of get away from me!

Anyway, I am excited about the design but feel that it might need something that I’ve not been able to find. Hopefully I’ll stumble across that last bit that it needs to bring it all together, but so far it’s been eluding me.

Such is design I guess. Knowing more and having more experience doesn’t always mean things get easier. In my case I’m going through a phase where my flaws really stand out! My plan is to push onward as I’ve got time and launch the new site.

If nothing else I’m sure it’ll build character.

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Reinvention: Creative Process, etc.

June 02, 2006 | 13 Comments

This is the third in a series of posts documenting and exploring my online reinvention. See this post for more.

What’s gone before

• I’ve decided to lay Asterisk to rest.
• I’ve set down some goals for what I want with my new site
• I’ve tossed around some ideas
• I outlined my goals (split into three groups; content, technical and creative)
• I’ve talked a bit about the specific “features” I’m looking to include

A few decisions made

So, while it’s taken awhile I’ve actually made some progress on this. I’m almost to the point where I can begin actually building it out. I’ve decided to use my dkeithrobinson.com domain and make a clean break from Asterisk. This doesn’t mean Asterisk is going away, it’ll still be here, only that I’m going to start a completely new site over at dkeithrobinson.com.

This means a totally new “brand”, CMS, design, etc. While I’ve still not decided on a CMS and I’m exploring my options there, I have done some work on my new identity and design. Quite a bit in fact.

Creative

Last time I talked a bit about my creative goals for this project. I mentioned that I was going for something that really reflected my personality. I mentioned primary colors, rock and roll, contradiction, boldness, etc.

I did quite a bit of “research” and finally settled on going with something that had a rock poster feel. I wanted something clean, yet slightly off. Something warn and inviting, yet bold and challenging at the same time. That’s the contradiction I’m talking about. I wanted to use primary colors (yellow, blue and red), bold type and a worn, silkscreened feel. I also wanted to do something that I’d not seen much of on the Web. How well I’ve done that will remain to be seen, but even though what you’re reading here might not seem that original, I think it’s coming together nicely and very unique.

Anyway, this process has been taking quite a long time and while I’ve got lots of sketching and screwing around in Photoshop I could show or tell you about, I’m going to keep it at a few teasers.

The color scheme is, as you might expect, based on primary colors. I’ve also worked out a “mark” of sorts based on the whole primary color theme. I’ve tried for shades that are complimentary, rich and a bit more friendly than the pure primary shades. I actually really like where it’s going.

For my main typeface, which you’ll see a bit of in the final design, I chose a wonderful typeface from Fountain called FTN Farao. Peter Bruhn, Farao’s designer says about his inspiration for Farao:

There’s something warm-hearted about old ephemera-letters that clutch together, wacky baselines, spilled ink, bad paper and a mix of letters from different typefaces. None of which would be considered good type & printing, but still feels so much more alive than many of today’s gridbased fonts.

It’s really a nice, funky and off-kilter font that I think will work really well for the feeling I’m going for.

Information Design

I’ve also spent a bit of time working out the layout of the various templates I’m going to need. I started with an interior article page, as I feel that, when it comes to blogs, this is the most important page.

I didn’t do a honest to goodness IA process, preferring to keep it kind of loose. As I’m in total control I’ll probably mess with it quite a bit once it’s into HTML and I didn’t want to spend lots of time doing anything formal.

I’ve worked out a quick and dirty zone diagram that loosely lays out the content for each of my major pages. I’ve got a bit of a cleaned up example that’ll show you my homepage layout as well as give you a bit of a preview of the color and typeface.

With all of this done I’m almost ready to begin work on the templates. I’ve got a feeling that once I’ve got all this into HTML I’ll do a bit of tweaking and I’ve not actually done a whole lot of design on the actual content itself. I prefer to see things in their almost final form before I get too far there.

It’s coming along, admittedly slowly, but it’s coming. My hope is that once I’m done I’ll be able to live with this for quite a while and go back to writing.

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Reinvention: Getting to Work

May 02, 2006 | 18 Comments

This is the second in a series of posts documenting and exploring my online reinvention. See this post for more.

What’s gone before

• I’ve decided to lay Asterisk to rest.
• I’ve set down some goals for what I want with my new site
• I’ve tossed around some ideas

Time to work

I’m nearing a point where I’m ready to begin work on my site. I’ve refined my goals and have a pretty good idea of what I’d like to do with my new site. To keep this post simple I’ll talk about three different aspects of this project:

• Content. Which, for now, is basically features and information design.
• Technical. The CMS.
• Creative. The creative direction for my new site.

I’m not going to get into tons of detail, but I’d love to get your feedback on these ideas.

Content

I’ve narrowed down what I’d like to see on my new site. I took my goals, refined them and came up with a practical working list of “features” or “content areas” I’d like for the site. Here they are in rough order of priority.

Article area

The “blog” if you want. I don’t really have time any more for frequently updated posts so I’m really thinking of this more as almost weekly articles than I am blog posts. I’d like to pair each article with an image and give it lots of prominence on the home page.

Inspiration area

I’d like to bring back the sharing of inspiration on my site. This would usually be in the form of music, so I’d quickly showcase something I’m really into, with the occasional podcast. However, I don’t want to limit it to that. I’m thinking of a prominent area that’s flexible for whatever I want to show.

Portfolio

I’m not sure what I want to do here yet, but it’s been years since I’ve showcased my work on my own site. I’d like to bring that back.

Personal streams

I’d like an area for my del.icio.us links, my Flickr photos and maybe something from Last.fm.

Etc.

I’ll need an archive, about page and other essentials.

Technical

I need to find a CMS that’ll do all of the above, which, considering it’s not all that complicated, I don’t think should be too hard. However I do have some other, pretty straight-forward, technical goals in mind.

• Spam-free. I’m sick and tired of dealing with spam. I’ve thought about eliminating comments all together, but I do want to keep the community aspect Asterisk has traditionally had. I may not rely on the CMS to deal with this and may set up some kind of comment moderation.
• Easy to set up and customize. I’m leaning towards sticking with MT because I know it and I don’t require a ton of features it can’t handle, but I’m going to explore other ideas. What I want is something that’s flexible yet not too hard to learn. Expression Engine is one I’m going to look at for sure.

Creative

Ah, here’s where it gets fun. I’ve done most of my thinking in this area because, well, it’s what gets me jazzed about this site. It is a personal outlet and I’d like to do something different creatively. One thing to note: I don’t plan on going way out there, I want the site to stay usable and readable as possible and I don’t want to introduce creative elements that take away from that.

Just like any good Web designer should.

However, one of my goals is for the site to express more of my personality and I’m going to try and do that here.

I’ve done lots of brainstorming, drawing, surfing, clip-cutting and observing. I’ve also done lots of introspective questioning. Here’s a quick creative brief, in list form, summarizing the direction I’ve come up with.

• Contradiction (I’m really very often of two minds about things. It’s part of my personality.)
• Primary colors (blue, red, yellow, black and white)
• Simple
• Rock and Roll
• Bold and colorful yet not overwhelming
• Strong (not big) typography
• More visual interest than I’ve got now
• Slightly off-grid
• Slightly aged or worn

Through all of this my underlining guideline is a slightly “dirty” visuals with clean and simple organization.

Next steps

I’m going to start by working out the layout for the article pages and work my way in. I’ll probably explore visual elements and the CMS along site that, but my first priority right now is to organize that information and get into specifics about what that various content will be and look like.

From there I’ll begin to code out some templates and visual style and seeing how I can fit this into a CMS that fits my needs.

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Reinvention: Goals

April 26, 2006 | 6 Comments

This is the first in a series of posts documenting and exploring my online reinvention. See this post for more.

What’s gone before

I’ve decided to lay Asterisk to rest.

Getting started down the path to something new

The first thing I did was accept that I had a problem with Asterisk. I’d realized that I wasn’t putting much effort into it and my readership was taking notice. The quality of my posts was going down a bit and I was generally spending less and less time on the site.

There were various factors going into this, but the one underlying cause was simple boredom on my end. I’ve been writing less and “blogging” more. My design had grown stale to me. My CMS was a mess. No one leaves comments anymore. Etc. Etc.

After acknowledging that I needed to do something I made some lists (pros vs. cons, etc.) that helped me define the problem and some various solutions. The result — I decided to go for a complete reinvention of my personal site. From the ground up, top-down and with a blank slate. Totally new baby!

So, I’d nailed my problem and had a general idea of the solution. Now to list my goals. Below is the first cut goals (in an off-the-top of my head format) I’ve laid out for this new site.

The big list of goals

• A “baggage-free” space to express myself
• A CMS that works well for what I want it to do
• No Spam
• A portfolio for my work
• Less blogging, more writing
• Higher quality posts, even if they’re less frequent
• A place to share things I enjoy (music, books, links etc.)
• Music podcast
• Encourage discussion
• A design I can be really proud of
• A place for my links
• More of my personality
• No ads
• Less concern about traffic and pageviews
• A “snapshot” and “scrapbook” of me and all my online stuff
• Less maintenance, something easier for me to keep up with
• Better organized (categories are out of control)
• More art and photos
• Images within posts
• A place to share inspiration
• Something new and different

Three high level categories

These goals and problems can be grouped into three high level categories

• Content (I’d like to write more and blog less, show my work, etc.)
• Creative (I’m hankerin’ for a new look, etc.)
• Technical (My system isn’t working well from just about every possible angle.)

Next Steps

What I’ll do next is take these goals, refine them and expand and/or contract where necessary. I’ll split them into those three high level categories so that I can then better address as far as a solution goes. For example, I’ll put all the technical things into a group and use that to help determine what kind of CMS I’d like to use. I’ll put the creative issues into a list I’ll address via design etc. I’ll then probably whip up a quick summary of each for reference.

Then, once I know what I need to address and why, the real fun stuff starts.

I’ll be taking this a bit slow. Mainly to make sure I get it right but also because I’m really busy. I’ll keep y’all in the loop and I appriceate any feedback you’ve got to offer.

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