I did a whole lot of doodling, scrawling and idea plotting on the weekend for my new project to redo CountryVilla-Algarve.com. I was getting all kinds of excited on my plans to do a technically challenging site – something that I could really prove myself on.
I was thinking about the design. After a lot of scrawling I decided on doing a website that would capitalise on the photos that I’ve taken of the villa and surrounding area – that’s where the beauty lies!
But I began thinking. A long time ago, when I thought about tackling this site again I dove straight into Photoshop and a day later chucked out my design. Why? I thought I should create a website that would challenge my DESIGN skills.
I had a memory, yesterday, of when I previously thought about this site and wanted to give it a more rustic natural feel using warm colours, textures, romantic fonts and using more design elements. I like incorporating textures into my designs but I wanted to see if I could try something a little bit more creative. Which has now got me thinking – am I going down the right path now?
I’m thinking I am right – yes the villa’s in the countryside but it’s not all that rustic. I wouldn’t say. It’s pretty modern. Fair enough, it’s built in an old farmhouse, but the farmhouse wasn’t that old.
Can I rely on photography alone to get the message across to the visitor of what the villa is actually like?
I’m hoping the answer is yes. Mostly because I REALLY want to try doing a large background site. I like the challenges that it feels like it could give me. Technically. I get more of a kick out of problem solving with coding than design.
Maybe I’m being a bit selfish in doing what I want to do with this site. Maybe I could combine both aspects?
It’s been a very long time since I sat down and really thought about a new site. ‘Back in the day’ when I was creating fan sites and fanlistings every other weekend I’d be sitting in front of Photoshop creating a new design for a brand new site.
Strangely enough, since becoming a web designer by day, I’ve not had my own site project since I created Rachel Elbaz Couture. That was over two years ago and not really a project of my own, rather another job.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve been itching to start something new and really try something new – challenge myself with a design I’ve not done before. I think I’m stuck in a rut. I stick to the ‘safe’ designs I know how to design, code and get working. Designs which are more or less templates of one another consisting of a header, footer and a space for your navigation and main body. I’m getting bored with that and I think I’m ready to finally do something about that boredom!
I’m planning on completely redoing my parent’s website – CountryVilla-Algarve.com. No, it’s not a completely brand new site, but it’s the way I’m approaching the project. Why? The site itself is very old. All of the content needs a massive overhaul and some proper thought needs to go into the structure and content of the site. Rather than me fudging the site and creating a very generic looking, if clean, site.
I looked at it and realised it’s got no personality. Nothing to really stand it out from anything else I’ve done or similarly themed sites. It’s the perfect site where I can really play with my own skill set and put myself to the test to try something new. Show myself I’m not suited to just one kind of site.
This afternoon I’ve done a bit of brainstorming – ideas for the layout, how the content will fit in, how I’m going to be changing the content and structure of the site. I’m getting excited! I’m actually getting excited about web design again! It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve been looking forward to get working on a web project and I think it’s exactly the kind of thing I need to do at the moment to get me excited about the work I do.
I’m going to try to document this project of mine properly – use it as a some sort of case study that I can go back on and look at.
Wish me luck!
Last year I made a make shift one page design for my portfolio. It was very simple, a little rough around the edges, but it had all the details I wanted on the portfolio.
Translation – all the content was there but the design work behind it wasn’t all that well thought through.
I was happy with it for maybe a week after it went live but from then, I wasn’t. I knew it was just going to be a stop gap design until I did a ‘proper’ design. Months later and that ‘proper’ design never happened.
Until last weekend. A weekend with practically nothing planned in, it being bloody cold outside, what better time to sit down and give the old portfolio a rethink?
This time I sat down with a better picture in my mind about what I wanted. I knew I wanted to keep one thing from the stop-gap design: I wanted to still have a one page portfolio.
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