I love fiddling about with this website. I'm constantly making tweaks and experimenting, as the purpose of this website is for me to play about and learn new things!
Normally, I only make slight changes here and there - change the layout of a single page, add a new heading, and so on.
However, I felt that the previous design was beginning to get a little long in the tooth. The list of areas that I felt didn't look up to scratch was constantly growing, and each new section felt increasingly jarring - the site lacked cohesion as a whole.
Around this time, I started to redesign my running log. This was one of the very first pages I built when I first designed this iteration of the website, so my approach and taste has changed a fair amount since then! I moved to a new card interface for the pages there, which after fiddling with for a few weeks, I loved. It felt a lot cleaner and a lot fresher, and helped to highlight the key information in a way which hadn't happened before.
I began to roll out a similar design to the other areas of the website. First the project section, then posts. Once those were both settled, I expanded it to the theatre section.
Finally, I overhauled the homepage, which had remained pretty much untouched since the website launched. The previous version highlighted the projects and posts as key areas, but more fun, passion projects such as the reading log were hidden in an obscure part of the website. I added bright, bold new cards to the homepage to help promote those areas of the site, making them more visible to those visiting the site!
One of my favourite things about this new design style is the greater use of colour. I always liked the previous design, which relied almost exclusively on a light grey and a shade of electric 'hero blue'. However, it felt quite dull in certain areas - on most pages, it was only the header that had any colour whatsoever. This new style really helps to brighten the site as a whole.
As well as this, I'm particularly pleased with how the new colour scheme helps to give each separate area a distinct identity. Projects are green, theatre is red, posts are pink, and so on. Whatever you're looking at, it now has a far stronger visual identity across the website.
Of course, all of this came with challenges. I'm very wedded to the main accent yellow, and didn't want to lose it on the website. However, it initially clashed with some of the more neon shades used elsewhere. To solve this, I chose to change the page background across the site to a more yellow shade of white, helping to bridge the gap between all the new colours and the old classic.
And I'm not done yet... Today I've tweaked this new design around 12 different times, picking out slightly different colours and updating different areas to "fit in" better with the new style. Currently, some pages are still in the old style - most of these are in need of some TLC anyway, so will be getting a refresh soon!
I'm really happy with this new design, and I'm sure it will only continue to improve with every refinement. Thoughts? Get in touch using the button above - I'd love to hear what you think.