Everything In Flux

When I design for for my own personal site, I am excited. I love the freedom that such an assignment provides as I head down one path for a personal identity and then another.

In this design process, I reach the usual point. The point where I become bored with the design and design never sees the light of day again.

That’s one of the reasons why I flipped the switch for the new design. I needed to get the site design out there before I lulled myself into sleep about the design. By rushing out earlier than I would have normally, I settle (or trick) myself into owning this design. Since it’s out in the open, I feel more of a need to finish it up and show how cool this design can be rather than letting it collect dust on some hard drive or DVD‑R.

So, there are going to be some bumps along the way as I wrap up the site design. I need to finish assembling some content and salt and pepper the final design to taste.

In the meantime, let me know how you design for yourself? Do you have a hard time designing for yourself as do I?

10 thoughts on “Everything In Flux

  1. I like your new design, although I just started reading your blog, so I wasn’t attached to the old one. Nice job.

    I always criticize my own work much harder than I would someone else’s — I’m never satisfied with what I design and it’s never good enough.

  2. Growing pains but hey… it means progress! I do have troble designing for myself. I usually do something and still shoot it over to someone I respect to take a look at it. It’s nice to have a second set of eyes just in case. Your own identity is always hard because at least for me I have many aspects to me that I want to convey and that is a bit challenging. It’s a learning experience for me to figure out what I think I am and what I want to show the world. 

    The design…awesome and very fun!

  3. My wife very eloquently summed up our most recent design process:

    Building this site has been a bit of a comedic adventure in Why Designers Should Hire A Designer. Despite all our proselytizing about keeping things simple, when it came to our own site we found ourselves trying to cram it full of every idea we’ve ever had. Seriously — the first iteration of the site practically did your dishes for you. And then, inevitably, we’d hit a wall. Pound our keyboards in frustration. Let the site sit for a while. Each time we came back to it we cut it down a little bit more, but there was still too much information and too little breathing room. …”

    http://whatcouldbe.com/blog/?p=54

    fwiw, I like your new site, and it looks good w/o images too.

  4. I think I told you this when we talked briefly in Austin, but I think most folks have a ton of trouble designing for themselves. I went through dozens of completely different and original mockups before I finally just bit the bullet and threw the switch. And I’m sure that what I landed on will change too.

    And now that I’m trying to help my girlfriend through the same process, she’s finding the same challenges and difficulties. I think it’s just a fact of life — you are your own toughest client.

  5. I feel the same way you do. A personal site design is easy to get started but can be tough to live with.

    For what it’s worth, I love what you’ve got going here!

  6. I love it. I know most redesigns get a chorus of “well done”, but this is a wonderful new look. 

    I particularly love the illustration work. There seems to have been a real reawakening of illustration on the web and it suits the colour theme perfectly.

  7. Very new web designer here. I’ve been working on my website since the end of January as my final project for the local webmaster certification program. I’ve really enjoyed the graphics part of the design, but the CSS part of the design is giving me fits. Based on my experience designing a couple of small websites, I imagine that I’ll always find designing for myself easier than designing for others. Balanced against that is fact that client projects actually get finished, which is satisfying in itself.

    Your book, CSS Cookbook, is one of the first of many CSS books I’ve read since October. It’s great.

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