August 13th, 2009 — Design

Website Legacy

Before using my own name I used a few pseu­donyms — ins­pi­ra­tion (+/-), the­most­won­der­ful, and Tra­vism, were a few I went under. Some bet­ter than others, obviously. Using my own name was to me a sign of matu­rity, a coming into myself if you will.

Here is a look at the sites of the past. Hope­fully this explo­ra­tion will put this new ite­ra­tion into context.

Ver­sion one

I’m almost emba­rras­sed to show this one. Thrown together in haste, I put it up imme­dia­tely after the url was purcha­sed. Fea­tu­ring nothing more than 3 links (to a portfolio/gallery, a resumé pdf, and one to email me), this site was an exer­cise in bre­vity more than minimalism.

Ver­sion two

As much as the pre­ce­ding ite­ra­tion was under-designed, this ver­sion was over-designed. The goal was to prof­fer a tac­tile kind of pre­sen­ta­tion, a gritty visual form that mani­fes­ted itself as a dis­tres­sed paper being duct taped to the wall. I really liked this one and put a lot of work into it. It was my first expe­rience with CSS, which tur­ned out to be a valua­ble les­son. The main issue I had with it was that the size of the web­site was ill-considered. It was to wide for most brow­sers and made for an uncom­for­ta­ble expe­rience. Still I thought it was cool.

Ver­sion three

Inten­ded to be a tem­po­rary solu­tion to the short­falls of its pre­de­ces­sor, this site set the tone for the next two years — play­ful & fami­liar. A one page intro­duc­tion to myself and no sam­ples of my work to be found, the main high­light here was the enter­tai­ning copy I wrote for it, begin­ning with the head­line “what’s up losers?” down to inc­lu­ding my twit­ter feed on the front page.

Ver­sion four

Une­qui­vo­cally the most popu­lar and suc­cess­ful revi­sion to date, this ver­sion did its job well. Main­tai­ning the witty stance on copy wri­ting and even expan­ding on the frilly graphics of ver­sion three, this site led to more com­mis­sions than I had pre­viously known, It was even the main ele­ment, aside from my char­ming per­so­na­lity, that was ins­tru­men­tal in lan­ding my current posi­tion as Crea­tive Direc­tor with BRAIN­rust. I am kind of sad to retire it now, but it was long due, the flo­ral deco­ra­tive ele­ments are now dated, and I am not acti­vely loo­king for new work any­more. My prio­ri­ties have chan­ged, and now, so has the site.

Ver­sion five — Current Version

What star­ted as a sepa­rate pro­ject from my design port­fo­lio all together, this design is a mer­ger bet­ween a short lived “Sec­ret Photo Jour­nal” and my tra­di­tio­nal port­fo­lio. This current design is a dip into the world of the Word­Press blog­ging plat­form and a rigid 12 column grid, dres­sed in a type-driven mini­ma­list theme. This is by no means the ulti­mate expres­sion of this web­si­tes legacy, but it is a nice place for now. I can post my designs and thoughts along with the pho­tos I have here­to­fore been posting.

Final Word

Please don’t laugh to hard at those early ver­sions, it takes a lot of cou­rage to show­case them des­pite their flaws in this over-opinionated forum called the inter­net. Thank you for enjo­ying that won­der­ful trip down memory lane, please unfas­ten your seat belts and exit on the left.

***Update!***

I know It’s hard to believe, but I have upda­ted the site again since this pos­ting last August. Read the details about the new design here