So what have I’ve been doing for the last few weeks? I’m happy to announce the launch of GRUNT at gruntdesign.com. This is my new business identity and a step forward in my freelance career. CurtisHenson.com started out as a portfolio, and then became a blog, I recently redesigned the site to try and incorporate a portfolio but wasn’t happy with it. So I decided to separate the man from the myth(or something like that).
I decided to build an identity around a logo I had done, which is pretty much ass backwards from the way most people would do it. The gorilla was originally for a side project but now fronts the GRUNT name which I truly believe is an appropriate name and identity for me(being the megalomaniac I am). Domain inspiration came from my friend Will, which also included several other “colorful” suggestions.
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It’s alive! And almost error free. I was never happy with the previous designs of this site, they seemed pasted together like a bad 80’s collage. So I set on the adventure to re-design my own site, something I hate doing because I always want to go in a thousand different directions.
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I’ve launched the new curtishenson.com! But what has changed? It looks the same! Well it wasn’t a complete redesign but a realign. I’ve launched a premium wordpress theme called Chocolate and this site now reflects that new direction.
The homepage is now much more useful and will change with the focus of the site. My aim was to have a big bold homepage that will be very dynamic and reflect my current projects. And to be a bit of eye candy.
New font! I love fonts, I love sIFR and I love Avant Garde! I think Avant Garde is much more appealing font and more fitting than delicious was.
I can’t read it, it is too dark. Yes the sidebars, headings, and other elements are much darker than they were. I want the focus of the user to be on the content, not distracted by doodads and widgets. Everything is still very readable but blends in with the background when not focused on, which allows me to really pop things out I want you to see.
Code! Yes the code has been changed, and in fact is still changing. The Blueprint CSS framework has been updated to the latest version(more on that later). The wordpress code has changed and hopefully the site is smoother and more well behaved. I will also be consolidating my wordpress theme files down to minimum and will be writing a tutorial about that very soon! I’ve also upgraded the cache to WP Super Cache, and phpSpeedy is handling the compression. The end result, I hope, is a fast agile tiger like website!
Oh yeah I added flickr in my sidebar, thats right I’m one of the cool kids now.
A new version of the blueprint CSS framework has been released. It features a few improvements on things like file structure and class names. But the big update is the included compressor which can do all sorts of cool things like semantic class names, and a grid generator. I plan on updating this site with the new code and will do a write up and maybe a tutorial when I am done. Which brings me to my other new blueprint.
There has been a slow down in posts and that is due to me finishing up my first premium wordpress theme and the re-aligning of this website. I’m currently getting the documentation together, and writing tutorials and such which has taken up my blogging time. The good content and useful posts will be making an appearance with less pithy comments type of posts.
This site has been going through little changes since it’s inception and as it sits the design isn’t really snapping together, I hope to fix that. Also the index page of curtishenson.com is pretty much worthless, that will be completely changed and the site will essentially be split into two sections: a blog, and webdesign. I hope this will better serve everyone.
Getting inspiration for design can sometimes be challenging. It is easy to go to your favorite CSS gallery or design site and get some ideas, but more often than not this leads to boring designs. Sometimes getting a fresh creative idea takes some digging in some unusual dirt. Continue Reading
