Last time I tried to do a redesign, I started to do it live and stuttered across many difficulties I couldn’t anticipate, and it ended up in cold water.
This time I decided to leave things quiet and work on it at my pace so the upcoming version doesn’t suffer the same fate as version 3, which never saw the light of day.
So first things first, rather than jumping into Photoshop blindly I decided to think about what I wanted to do with the website. Something that many people and companies don’t do.
Why do I need a new website?
There’s nothing wrong with the current design of this blog, in fact Andrea Mignolo did a brilliant job on this template, and I fell in love with it’s simplicity the first time I saw it (which isn’t often). It’s minimal, and streamlined, and focuses on content.
So what does it lack?
Well first of all, I don’t post hardly as much as I wish I did, and when I do it’s never with the quality I wish it would have, so I decided that the next version, despite still being a blog at heart, to be more inline to what Wolfgang Bartelme did with his website, in which he has long articles once every full moon with excellent quality, and a bit more frequently he posts little articles called Sidenotes.
I think that by following this type of content organization I’ll feel more motivated to post content, because not all of it has to or will be “excellent”, but the readers who are only interested in insightful content can still subscribe to the “main blog”.
New identity?
Corporate identity is one of those bull**** terms some companies use to describe a service that consists of making new envelopes, letter templates and business cards with a new logo. But who am I to criticize that?
With the new version of the site not only am I changing the design, the layout, the content and how it’s organized, I’m also changing my online identity, literally. I’m getting more than a new logo, I’m getting a new name. Gone will be “whitehawk” or “Griffith” (except in online games), and in will be my real name, Marco Jardim.
Using a persona or a nickname to represent yourself online is fine when it consists of a hobby or recreation, but if you want your website to be a gateway for future opportunities and you want to become a reference in any given community you need to carefully choose how you wish to be addressed as. And rather than being addressed as one of my favorite fantasy novel characters, I want to be addressed by my real name.
A million people can and do take up the name of their favorite game/novel characters online, but if you Google for Marco Jardim, you won’t find many people. So just choosing to use my real name I instantly easier to find online.
In short
- Promote myself more, by my own name
- Emphasis on select-few quality articles and more short articles, or “Notes”
- Simple, streamlined design with great typography, and a moderated use of new technologies
- Incorporate a bit more social-media data on the website, and try to not use widgets
Possible Plans
My father, whom I’ve written about a few times was one of the best Journalists in Portugal, during his time, and I think that it’s a waste for him to stop writing. That’s why I’m thinking of making a blog for him to write his articles on. Unfortunately it will be in Portuguese, but those that do understand the language will surely enjoy his words.
Since jard.im is such a short url, I’m considering making a url “shortener” that might or not go public. Shaun Inman’s “Lessn” seems like a good place to start from.
And that’s basically it. I don’t want to be to far-fetched in my plans but for now those seem adequate short-term goals.
I might or not post some teaser pics of the new design, but I will try to maintain a log and let you know of the “who’s” and “whys” of the new design.
Look forward to it 