by Frank | Jul 4, 2012 | graphic design, web design
Palma Mule got in contact with me to ask if I’d help her with a website. She’d recently decided to set up her own counselling service in Bath and wanted a site that would reflect her professionalism but also her way of working – she helps clients work with the feelings and traumas of their lives by encouraging them to express themselves creatively. She’s a very warm, gentle person and I wanted to communicate this, too, for obvious reasons.
She had some really strong ideas about how the logo and the site would look and it was great to work with someone who had such determination to realise their vision. We quickly came up with this little site, which we both feel is warm and welcoming and professional without being clinical. Hope you like it, too!
by Frank | Mar 21, 2012 | web design
Just a quick little post to show y’all a website that’s recently gone live. I designed the wordpress theme and the client can upload all text and images himself. Tis located here on the internets: https://www.dylans.com/
by Frank | Feb 23, 2011 | blog news, thoughts, Uncategorized
A groundhog
A few months ago I updated my website. Now I’m considering doing it again. Say what?
The last update was an emergency thing (sort of. No-one’s house was burning down or anything). I wanted to add a contact form and other bits and pieces to the site, and the theme I had used originally was dragged down by ancient PHP-coding which flat-out refused to allow me to add a simple little plugin. So readers couldn’t subscribe to my newsletter or download my little guide to working with designers. Pah.
A quick update to the theme, retaining a lot of my original design, and after a weekend of bleary-eyed coding I came up with this site.
Which is okay. But not perfect.
The whole point about good design is that it engages people. It takes dry text and brings it to life. It shows rather than tells. It needs to show the world who you are.
So it’s vital to regularly review how you present yourself to the world. And although I’m not in love with this site, I couldn’t work out in which direction I wanted to travel. Until I saw this documentary on Parkour, and it all became clear. And now I hold an image in my head – a concept, rather – and I know how to move forward.
I knew this site was too wordy. I know that at present, I tell rather than show. Which is a bit silly, for a designer. But I know that a lot of people find design a bit scary, and get put off by the uber-minimalist image-led focus of many designers’ sites. So I wanted to talk to people and tell them about me, about what I do, and about the way I work. But I think I’ve got the balance wrong.
This site doesn’t suit me any more. I’ve grown leaner, fitter, stronger – and it hangs heavy around me.
My new site will be agile. Curious. Engaging. It will present my vision to the world (oh, it sounds hella precocious, I know, but I promise it won’t be so bad!). At the moment I’m all, “this is my business, you should hire me”. I want to be, “this is the energy and attitude I bring to the world – you want some?”
But, as doctors make the worst patients, graphic designers are their own worst clients. It’ll take time. I am blessed with a very busy period at the moment, but hope to have the new site launched for my birthday at the end of May.
Ah – the possibilities! One could drown in them.
by Frank | Jul 7, 2010 | blog news, web design
Wooooo! Shiny new WordPress site! Very happy with it right now but will probably tweak pages etc over the next few weeks. Now my website and blog can all be in one seamless glorious place.
A little plugin called Blogger Importer doesn’t appear to be working, so at present I can’t import my old posts. If you’d like to see them, they’re still here.
WordPress is great for several reasons – it’s w3 compatible and very search-engine friendly. Disparity of appearance between various browsers is limited, and this and the fact it’s prettified using Cascading Style Sheets mean that, provided they know their CSS, designers have maximum control over how a site looks.
This is the first site I’ve designed using WP, but I have a few more in the pipeline – watch this space.
