Anew
An Old Friend
The previous incarnation of smallTransport, now relegated to the Web Design section of this site, served me well. We had a great run together. It put smallTransport on a small corner of the Web design map and was vital in producing business. For these reasons it will keep a special place in my memory.
Moving On
After more than eight months of the previous design, it was time for a fresh coat of xhtml, a dash of css, and most importantly, migration to textpattern. Looking at your creation day-in, day-out for eight months you develop a mental list of its deficiencies and in time, are left with no choice but to open your favorite drawing application and start anew. I imagine all designers relate to this feeling.There were a number of areas where, I felt, the previous design was lacking.
It was too dark.
The organization of the portfolio pages was poor. Previously, the visitor would go to the digital or print page, scroll down the page to view thumbnail images and a short description of each project then go to yet another page when an individual project was selected. I found this process to be obtrusive and inconvenient.
- There was a definite lack of energy. If anything, the design was stoic.
- Apart from the small “Recent Items” widget, I had little or no interaction with the large volume of visitors; I needed a way to connect with people.
Here We Are
So, here we are. After a week or so of designing, redesigning, coding, and recoding, the new site is up and going. It feels great to see the site anew. I dig the large header image (which I might add will change frequently), the warm color palette, the re-engineered portfolio section and most of all the textpattern delivery. What does it all mean? Well, it means this site is equipped to deliver fresh material on a regular basis. The About section covers some of the nerdy details and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
As I am new to this whole textpattern thing you will, most likely, run across invalid code here and there and maybe even a few CSS issues in your browser. If you would be so kind as to email me I will greatly appreciate it.
Upcomming
On this site I will publish articles spanning Web design, projects I am involved in, the designer/client relationship, and design in general. Heck, I may even spout off about a recent event, how much I appreciate my Mac, how great it is to be a designer, or any number of other tangents. Though I cannot promise every article will be stellar, and no they will not be republished in Cabinet, I will do my best to keep things interesting, observant, and most of all, informative. Sound good? Onward!
John Hoysa
ivan cook
Johnnie
Jon Hicks
jeremy koempel
Prabhath
Only 1 thing, the site doesn’t fit on a 800*600 screen :’(
Ischa Gast