Finally! Sites by Joe gets a facelift

Finally!  I’ve been wanting to spruce up my own site for a long time.  I’ve felt that it was like the "painter’s house" in its plain appearance, especially since I’m supposed to be a designer after all.

Among the changes from the 2006-2007 design to the 2008-2009 design:

     
  • Changed the unit measurements on the site elements from fluid ems back to pixels. (Previously text enlargements on the client side enlarged everything on the page.  No longer.)
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  • Changed to a left alignment from a center alignment. (I’ve made sooo many center aligned sites that I had to do something different. It almost feels more free this way.)
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  • Updated the CMS driving the site to incorporate things I’ve improved since the last iteration of the site. (alot)
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  • Color scheme change. I couldn’t stand looking at blue and orange anymore.
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  • Flash. The iTunes style was too cool not to have to incorporate it.
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  • Other than that the site is mostly the same, same architecture. Its running on Code Igniter 1.6.3.

A look back at the site’s design to date:


Sites by Joe 2004-2005 design screenshot

This was one of the original designs, made in late 2004.  It was too skinny to hold much information without a whole bunch of scrolling going on.  The colors were nice. It didn’t last long.

Sites by Joe 2006-2007 design screenshot

This version increased the page width (this version changed around alot) and font size so it was easier to read.  The colors were bold (but not as nice) and really focused on minimal graphics and mostly styled HTML made the design.

Sites by Joe 2007-2008 design

The plainly styled HTML design pattern continued and eventually saw my site redone even more simply, using only a handful of graphics for the whole site. This designed used 100% em units making the entire site flexible.  A neat feature with no real use in the end.

The path of strict standards-based design eventually brought about the current style of more graphics and a richer and looser apporach to both layout and color. That is represented in the style you see now.



About Joseph R. B. Taylor

Joseph R. B. Taylor is a humble designer/developer who makes stuff for screens of all shapes and sizes. He is currently the lead UI/UX Architect at MScience, LLC, where he works to create simple experiences on top of large rich datasets for their customers and clients.