A Little Bit More About the New Website

I was so eager to just launch the thing and then go to sleep, I didn’t tell you much about this new site last week.

When I started thinking about the redesign a few months ago, I very much focused on encompassing all the things I do in a way that would really make this website the hub of my work presence online (this was before Tara and I started planning our class on being More Than One Thing, go figure).

As I perused WordPress themes and eventually decided to use Chameleon by Elegant Themes[1. Note: These are affiliate links. I’ve been super impressed with Elegant Themes, and recommend them with great enthusiasm!], I realized that in wanting a fairly simple design, the thing that would make the site uniquely mine would be a great header.

I thought of talking to a graphic designer, but then I realized I wanted to do something different. I wanted a header that reflects the things I’m passionate about – I wanted it to be handmade out of something tangible; I wanted it somehow to relate to words and books; and I wanted it to be both intricate and straightforward.

So I emailed my friend Rachael, who makes stunning art from paper and altered books, and asked her if she’d consider making me a website header. To my delight, she agreed, and you can see her work above. As I mentioned in my whizz-bang post, I even have the original papercut to frame. Rachael wrote about her process on her blog. (She also convinced me to stick with my original idea of using orange as the contrast colour, for which I’m very grateful.)

This is the first time I haven’t had my blog on the homepage of my site, a change I made for several reasons. First and foremost, my aforementioned goal for the site to be my online work hub – I want potential clients to have an easy time grokking what I can do for them, and for fans of my work to quickly find the information they’re looking for. Since I don’t exclusively blog about work-related things, my blog isn’t the best representative of my work (which isn’t to say it’s not an important part of my work presence).

Second, I’ve never been a very consistent blogger. Sometimes I go a few weeks between posts, and I don’t want my homepage to look stagnant. Except, well, yes, I want my homepage to look stagnant. But I want it to be intentionally stagnant, while providing a summary of what I do and links to learn more.

So. In sum, I’m quite a bit in love the the new thing. Here are the credits, all together:
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• Cut-paper header by Rachael Ashe
• Chameleon theme by Elegant Themes
• Social media icons by Helen Gizi for Onextrapixel

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