How do you start a new blog?
You can’t just launch right into a post. You’ve got to introduce yourself, say who you are and what you know. Right? I think I’ve got to tell you how much of an expert I am on some topic or another and tell you why you should come back and read again. But then, maybe I should just let loose with a bit of a brain dump and see what sticks. In any case, here it goes.
It was supposed to be so simple
For the the better part of two years this site root has been a simple splash page. I’ve tinkered with the page now and again, most recently landing on a look I called Colonial Book. I always had plans to do something useful here, but I wasn’t sure what.
What finally kicked me into gear was a conversation with a potential client who needed some web work done. While on a conference call with a team from this company, we started talking user interface and experience. I wanted them to see some of my past work and I ran into an all-too-familiar problem of not having any one place to send them.
This is happening more and more as I take on larger freelance projects. It always turns into this awkward conversation where I say a URL and I wait while they type it in their browser. There is usually some mistake in typing or spelling and it takes me a stupid amount of time to make some minor point with a visual aide. In the end, we always get to the right place and they see the examples, but it’s so cumbersome and makes for a terrible experience for my clients. I needed a solution.
When I finally set about making plans to resurrect this site it was purely to have a place to share my portfolio. So I started sketching and planning. This process cemented that I never want myself for a client. Beyond being demanding, picky, indecisive and late with content… I pushed the scope of the project every chance I got.
So that simple web portfolio morphed many times and finally came to rest on this blog based site where I can showcase all my projects, not just web… and if you can believe it… at the time of launch I still don’t have the work content finished. Ahh well. I just want to get this first iteration out the door. The scaffolding may still be up, the paint is still drying (and in some places still being applied), but things are straightened up enough to invite some guests in. So please pardon my dust… all the rough edges and dusty corners will be sorted out very soon.
So… What’s under the hood?
Elasticity is the name of the game
I am hugely inspired by the writings of Jon Tan on the practical application of elastic em based layouts. Ems were a mystery to me for a very long time, but I’m happy to say I’ve now got a firm grasp and am very happy with the result. This site is completely em based and, as all my testing shows so far, resizes perfectly in all the browsers I care for. That’s not to say IE doesn’t make me want to throw shit at the moon… but that’s another post I hope to make in the future.
Running in new fields
Before this, I had never used the custom fields feature of WordPress. I never really dug into the subject enough to know what they were for… or more specifically, what they could do. When I was trying to figure out how to have an image, alternate title, and alternate subtitle associated with my featured posts, but not to be a part of the post, custom fields filled my need perfectly.
So that beautiful photo of a mountain lake in the winter (don’t ask me what that has to do with launching a new blog… I just liked it) will follow this post wherever it goes. It’s actually part of the meta of this post. So short of re-imagining the style of every post, it will let me give my featured posts their own visual identity.
That’s about it for now
And so that’s my intro. The ice is broken, and the first post is made. I’ll now get on with some regular programming… and, of course, get that portfolio filled out.
I’d love any feedback you may have. Please feel free to comment with whatever you’ve got.
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