Tag Archives: portfolio

Site Updates

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As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’m rolling out some changes on this site. For a while now, I’ve wanted a bit of an update on the dark theme of my site. I really do like the older theme, it was very low-profile and showcasey, besides I’d made it myself from scratch, but it was starting to seem a bit dark for my taste, and the site needed to be updated anyway in its methods of handling information, so I figured I’d combine the changes into one.

Originally meaning to stick with “good sites come from tweaks and enhancements over time” I tried pretty fruitlessly to figure out how to change the existing layout into something that would keep my old site intact, but capably handle a new batch of work. Because we all know I won’t get a chance to update with much more than posts until Christmas break.

Alas, I couldn’t help but be suckered into the promises of greatness from a brand new theme, and as it turns out, using the simple Twenty Eleven theme by WordPress has been a very smart move.  I started with the Portfolio Press theme but decided its back-end was more than I wanted, and went with this option instead.  It’s run very simply from my end, leaving me to really focus on the posting, and letting the gears work all the coolness of the menus, the home page layout, with its different post type displays and featured slideshow, and the individual posts laying out differently as well.

It’s a good jump for me, and as I continue to get used to its workings and take advantage of its features, I hope you’ll enjoy it as well.  Lots of new content on the way as I’m starting a new year in school, so look forward to that!  For now, though, check out my summer stuff, especially the Poland post, for sure the most extensive blog post I’ve done yet.

I’m looking forward to putting new stuff up, learning more about this new theme, and hearing your feedback on how the whole thing is progressing.

A Year in Portfolios

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I’ve gone through 3 different portfolio layouts in 1 year

I’m kind of a redesign junkie. I remember reading somewhere that the best designs come from something solid being tweaked and adjusted over time to streamline and refine it, and I completely agree. But most of the time I design something and leave it alone for months and months, and when I come back with substantial new material (or like this time with a whole new type of material to accommodate) I just decide to completely overhaul the whole thing. Maybe it’s therapeutic, maybe it’s just getting into the mode of the work. I don’t know what it is. But I like it. I don’t do enough web stuff constantly, so sporadic in-depth projects are fun to do every few months.

Over the last year I guess I’ve had a bit of a light-colored-site fetish. Both of my earlier portfolios are very white and light gray. Interesting.

The first one is more my style of portfolio site, much like this one, where I’m trying to show as much as possible out of the stuff I’ve done that I like. I like giving a full picture, with lots of information. And I’ve done a lot of stuff, and lots of different kinds of stuff, so I like being able to remember it and show it. Believe me, just in making this it’s been a bit of a trip, going through all my old work, having to find some of my old work I’ve put in storage elsewhere. Fun fun.

I’m pretty proud of the translation from design to completion for this site. It’s almost exact. The top left link caption idea didn’t work, but I’m fine with that, I actually like having the other two links up there better, and room for a third. The footer was an afterthought, but I like it. The image gallery doesn’t work correctly, but that shouldn’t be my fault. It used to, and does on other sites, so I don’t know why it’s not working right here. But the images are up and viewable, that’s all I need. Lastly, the end of each post is a little different, where it lists the ‘Class:’ it also says ‘Personal’ and ‘Freshman’ instead of having class and year separated. But whatever. I don’t want to fudge around until I get it right, it’s good enough now, and if I hadn’t mentioned these flaws I’m sure nobody would have been bothered. :P

Note: The gallery functions work now, it was a simple fix, something I just didn’t know about. Make sure you leave wp_head() in your header file if you’re making custom WordPress themes.

2010 Web Design

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various web design projects of 2010

These are various web projects I’ve done over the last year that reached various levels of completion. There’s an all-code layout, some purely design pieces, but the ones that made it to code were pretty cool I thought.

First, obviously, is my personal blog layout. I don’t keep up with any blog well, but this one was an accomplishment to build. You can see it in action here.

The grungy typewriter musician layout made it to HTML code but was never adapted to any kind of CMS or WordPress or anything.

The parchment-looking portfolio minisite I was really excited about, and it made it to code and I’m pretty sure to some sort of WordPress thingy, but I guess I never finished it. Not sure why I never ended up using it… I remember having trouble formatting text around the image of myself at the bottom right, so maybe that was it. But I kind of also remember ending up with a usable, finished theme from it. Oh well. Oh no I did finish it, I just found it :P . I finished an HTML/CSS translation of it, but never took it into WordPress. Not sure why, but the coded version right now works fine.

I got really into cooking a while back, and still am, so I mocked up the food blog layout. It made it through to HTML/CSS.

I really like the blue portfolio idea. I never used it because just thinking about gave me trouble figuring out how to adapt it into a workable WordPress layout. It would be really cool, and I’d be super proud of it, but I’m cool with something simple like I’ve got at the moment. I tend to get wordy too, so having something that works large and small is probably better than this one.

Old Web Design

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personal web design, some coding

All of this stuff is varied. Some of it is purely design, just a Photoshop file, some has been coded into HTML and CSS, and there are two or three WordPress themes in there too. It’s all early in the stages of my web work though, first themes or first attempts at a few different techniques and things, like all-code designs or integrating more interactive elements. A few of them are even up and running, like the film blog and the AV homepage.