whichwayup.org

May 3, 07:44 PM: Redesign coming

Wow, I swear I typed up an entry about a new site design. I must have overlooked hitting the submit button.

In any case, I’ve been plugging away at a new design for the site. I think it’s coming along well, and I would like to push it live in the next week or so. I’ve got to incorporate all of the proper Textpattern tags and whatnot, so it can actually function. Right now it’s just living as a static HTML mockup. It will be cleaner, more “professional” looking, and will allow me to show off more photography without having to worry about a narrow page width.

I’m hoping that this design will also encourage me to write lengthier, more thoughtful pieces. The new design trumpets increased text readability. I hope that, if anything, my own ability to go and re-read my posts in an easy manner will provide encouragement.

I’m also going to rework the navigation of the archives. I’ve got to do some thinking as far as how that will work, though. So keep your eyes peeled, but I have a feeling nothing will go live until the middle of next week (at the earliest).

Feb 8, 11:39 PM: Site design, rebranding

Hi there,

So I’m aiming to launch a new design for whichwayup.org on April 1. It’ll be a much more “professional” looking design, and I will build it from the ground-up. No more altered textpattern templates, this one will be 100% my own. I’ll feel better about it, plus it will look nicer.

A few of the things I’m aiming for with the new design:

1. Fluid width. No more looking tiny at large resolution. WWU has been fixed-width since it’s debut in 2001 (with the exception of a 100% width design that briefly appeared in 2002).

2. Larger font. WWU has always had a small font, and I am getting tired of it. You’ll thank me when you no longer have a headache from reading the site.

3. Larger content area, to allow for posting of larger photos within entries.

Right now those are the priorities, I’m sure more will change as I begin developing.

I am aiming for the design to support Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer 7. If I feel ambitious, I may also try and achieve IE6 parity, but I don’t know. I would really like to encourage everyone who reads the site to get Firefox.

Nov 2, 10:32 AM: Morning Update

Those creepy Congresscritters
Leading off this morning is a clip of disgraced former-Congressman Mark Foley in the 2003 low budget action film Strike Force (The Librarians). And yes, this is for real.

I like my Tivo
A few months ago I got an actual Tivo. Previously I had tried Comcast’s Motorola HD DVRs, and I have to say they were awful. Half the time the scheduled shows would either 1) not record or 2) record corrupted. Lame. I decided paying $100 a month for television was completely ridiculous and now have a Series2 Tivo with basic cable. And that’s fine. It’s a better user experience than the Comcast DVR with HD.

Anyways, all of this is just a way for me to talk about two television shows, Jericho and Lost. Let’s tackle the island show first, and I’ll point you to an an interesting article in Entertainment Weekly. (Whoa, did I just type “an interesting article in Entertainment Weekly?” That won’t happen often). The third season of Lost has been kind of a letdown for me, I think it’s mostly viewer fatigue—I’ve reached the point where I don’t really care that much about the characters.

My favorite new show of 2006, though, is Jericho. It’s a post-apocalyptic drama set in a small Kansas town. The townspeople have very little information about what caused an attack on most major U.S. cities—though it has been implied it may have been the work of terrorists. In any case, the show tackles the grim reality of a town cut-off from everything… but also stays light-hearted enough (love stories, family drama, etc) that it appeals to more than just die-hard end-of-the-world genre fans.

Some other nonsense
I’m probably going to rework the photo galleries, again, to use a neat little Javascript “lightbox” to display the larger versions of each image. This is better from a usability standpoint, as you don’t have to leave the thumbnail page to view an image (instead the image will open in a “layer” placed over the current page. It’s pretty slick, and full of web 2.0 goodness. (cough)).

Oct 31, 09:21 AM: On Design

It’s been nearly a month since I changed the site over from MovableType to Textpattern and implemented a new design. I started with a Textpattern template, and have since highly modified it. I repaired most of the glitches in it, such as the abnormal behavior of the navigation tabs. Also I managed to import the old archives, which at one point I thought was nearly impossible.

There are still a few bugs here and there, namely with regard to URL structure (old links to archives won’t work anymore, etc). Also there are a few pieces of content I need to move over, such as the 9/11 memorial video. But other than those few pieces, most of the content has been relocated. The “Portfolio” section is completely new, and I’m very pleased with that.

However, I again return to the design factor. I’m using a fixed-width design, and I honestly do not like it. It’s not terrible, but it’s not what I would ideally want for my site. To me, a design such as this does not emphasize content, it emphasizes design. And the design is nothing extraordinarily special. It’s a standard no-table layout, with some custom graphics that I put together, and some reworked navigation.

Eventually I will create a new template, that is better organized than this one, and makes more sense for the content I am trying to present. But at the moment, I think I’m just going to keep using this one since it does, for the most part, get the job done.

Oct 26, 10:05 PM: New addition

Covers from The Georgetown Voice

I’ve added a graphic design section to the Portfolio area. Right now it only includes a handful of covers I designed for the Georgetown Voice. I’m hoping to dig up images of the rest of my covers, and also some PDFs of various spreads I worked on. We’ll see if I can find them.