I’ve been providing clients with cutting-edge, WordPress websites that are easy to update for years now, yet I never had one for my own site. That has now been resolved.
The problem with being so busy is that you just don’t have time for your own portfolio site. So, I spent an inordinate amount of weekends and evenings (I started this design last October) putting that right and my new site is now live. It will allow me to blog more often, add new sections to my portfolio and keep all my clients – and prospective clients – aware of what I am up to. While my old site was cutting edge in its day, it was also tricky to update, and two years had passed since I had last added anything new.
I seem to be in a phase of building websites out of wooden materials. I’m no stranger to this art form in real life. Some of the elements from the redesign were recreated from real, physical artworks that I created long ago. Most I gave away to friends. I have none in my personal possession any more, but I have some photos of some of my favourites and these I used to form some of the elements in the Footer. It was an intriguing prospect to recreate some of these in a virtual form, while adding a lot more elements that related either directly to my work, or my personal whims and fancies.
I was persuaded to keep my Arthur Rackham Fairy in the header, and it feels right to still be there, because Rackham drew and painted in the area of London where I live. The postcard in the box at the top right is also of Kensington Gardens, a place I draw inspiration from almost daily, so that is a reminder of where home is, even when I am lost in a design or working through a page of code.
I’m looking forward most to being able to share more of my latest work as and when I create it, and the new portfolio not only allows me to show-off larger images, it also allows me to do so very quickly.
I’ve got some new features that I would like to add in time, but for now this will keep me happy. I have another couple of personal projects that I would like to launch this year, so finally I can devote my spare time to those.
I’d like to finish this post with a massive thank you to Greg Taylor of the Daily Grail who kindly hosted the last incarnation of my website for more years than I care to remember. Thanks, Greg, for giving Artifice Design a home for all that time – and a big thank you also to David Pickworth, you saved my skin more than once!
