I’ve been trying to build my website for about 6 months since we began the project at school. I’ve wrestled with dozens of ideas that I tried with varying levels of success and commitment to. Since beginning work on the site, its been much more about experimentation than finding a good solution. Another reason I can never follow through with a concept is because I’m never really satisfied with what I’ve done. I feel like every time I see a trick used on somebody else’s site, I need to find a way to build it into the dozen other tricks I’m tossing around in the same design.
As I found out time and again, it takes a lot of time and dedication to fully implement an experimental website interface. At least it takes more time than I’m willing to spend on one, simply because I’m always seeing something new I want to try out and play with. I can’t open Firefox a single time without seeing something that sparks my curiosity and before I know it I’m building a new website.
It’s just not practical redesigning my website every time I want to try out a new trick with flash, java, css or I decide that I’ve found a new favorite typeface. It’s way too much work building a site from the ground up and whats the point in having an identity on the interweb if it’s always mutating into something different.
the solution
After months and months of changing my mind, I’ve settled on an idea that I discovered over the summer. Jason Santa Maria, Dustin Curtis, and David DeSandro are running a system that allows them to tailor the design of an article to the content they are writing about. Basically their websites are like magazines which have independently styled articles, rather than a set blog theme.
Thanks to them I’ve decided that I don’t need to settle on a single look, instead I can change it whenever I want to/have time without needing to do the work a major website overhaul requires.
to summarize
I have a feeling this whole thing might just sit here collecting internet dust, but I’ll do my best to find the time and will to update it regularly! Also, and probably more importantly is the thoughts section which I will use to dump my ramblings and findings on [mainly] graphic design related things.