As I spoke about in my last post, once I had the idea for the the new design for the site in my head, and on a sketch pad, I began working on the header image for the page. The first version of the header didn’t come out quite right, and so I began tweaking it to get it to my liking. The second header I came up with looked like this:

As you can see, or as you’ll later see, the most changes in banner came between the first and second versions. The font used changed from the first to the second versions (although, as you can see, it eventually changed back. I decided to use a silhouetted image of a man in a suit and tie, because I wanted to play up my existence in the corporate world, and I changed the tagline text, from “Southern Efficiency, Norther Charm”, to “A Southern Blend of Wit and Bourbon, Since 2003″. I changed the font, because I liked the smoother lines of the new font, called ‘anAnakronism’; I changed the silhouette image because, like I said in my previous post, the ‘Nixon’ image didn’t look very good in the new design. Finally, I changed the tagline text, because I wanted to make some mention of how long I had been blogging, and well, I feel like those things should change, every so often, and so the tagline will probably continue to change periodically in the the future. I was satisfied with the new header, but as I looked at it, and thought about the tagline, I began to get a couple of new ideas.

I did some work late one night, just see my new ideas up on the screen, and this is what I came up with:

The idea of the bourbon bottle worked a lot better as an idea in my head than it did as a graphic image, so I scrapped it quickly, although I do wish that my graphic design skills were better, so that I could give it a go again in the future.

At this point you have to understand that, when I design, especially for myself, I am always my biggest critic, and I seem to always continually analyze and scrutinize the work that I have done or am planning to do. So with that said, I changed the banner one last time, as you can see below in the finished initial design, by scrapping the silhouette image altogether, and going with a floral theme, which settled in with the font quite nicely, as well as changing the color scheme, from a deep purple to a navy blue on white, with greys. I then filled the front page with the content I wanted, continuing the floral theme throughout the headers, and this is what I came up with, finally:

With the design finished, for the most part, I sat back, and admired my work…and I hated it.

Sometimes, when you’re so far in to a design, you get so involved in the minor details, and correcting small problems, that you forget to look at the big picture. The page above, is nice looking, for sure, but it isn’t without it’s problems. The design, I felt, didn’t represent me at all, it was too busy, with a lot of unimportant, extraneous information, and in my haste to fix small problems and put together a page that I liked to look at, I had mangled the CSS and HTML, so that the page was no longer standards compliant. I also focused to much, I believe, on the visual aspect of the new design, without truly thinking about things that are, at minimum, just as important, and more likely, much more critical, such as the site’s architecture, and the content that I should be pushing to my viewers, instead of just adding content to fill the page.

I realized that I had to go all the way back to the drawing board, and recreate the site, not just the visual design aspects of Southbound Home, if I were to truly make it a better site. And as you read in the near future, I soon did.

I wanted to go through the various reasons that I choose to redesign the site (a month ago now), but my stupid real job seemed to get in the way for quite a while. I’m back home now, and can devote the time to this post that it needed, to make it worth while. I really wanted to get this post completed as quickly as possible, on the tails of the CSS Reboot, so that some of the posters that found their way here from that event could see the process that I went through with this site in comparison to some of the other sites that participated. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but I hope that I still have a few straggling regular visitors from the CSS Reboot who can enjoy and appreciate the, not one, but two, full redesigns that I went through, to get this site up for the Reboot. And I hope that some of my more regular readers can get something from this, about me, my design style and processes, and hopefully design in general as well.

Starting Out

To redesign simply for the sake of redesign is misguided, at best, and often doomed from the start. Southbound Home definitely needed a redesign, though. It had been about a full year since the last major redesign, and while the site was functional, it wasn’t optimal for reading. It was hard to get to posts, it was hard to find things, and there were quite a few unneccesary redundancies in some of the content that was on the site. With that said, though, I didn’t even began getting any ideas for a redesign, until I began doing a few possible site work-ups for the Phi Mu Sorority at Ole Miss. The work-up for the particular design that compelled me to redesign my own site was based loosely on the then new design of Wonkette. Specifically appealling to me was the large header image that covered the entire width of the page, with the smaller shaded area for the menu below it. Inspired by this, and having decided that a redesign was necessary, I made sure that the Phi Mu’s weren’t interested in that particular work-up, and I began working on a new header for Southbound Home. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a regular visitor to Southbound Home, when you typed the address into your web browser this morning, you probably noticed, quite a change. If you didn’t, hit refresh. And if you’re new to the site, welcome. Today is May 1st, and what you’re seeing on your screen is the results the work I’ve put in to redesigning the site over the last couple of months, in order to participate in the now semi-annual CSS Reboot. I had some mid-design changes of heart, and changes of direction, and some last minute panic, as I scrambled to make what I thought were some critical changes, but I’m really proud of what I’ve put together, and I plan to write a post, or maybe a series of posts, detailing the processes that I used to come to what you see in front of you.

In the mean time, look around, and feel free to tell me what you think. In all the rush, I’m sure that there are mistakes that I’ve made, or things that I might have over looked, so I won’t be at all upset if people make my life easier by pointing them out for me. Also, if you’re reading this site in Internet Explorer, please, for the love of all that is holy, go here and get yourself a new browser. Fixing the site so that you can see it the way in which it was intended has caused me untold headaches over the last few days. I don’t hate you, but I don’t like you very much right now.

Be sure to go to CSS Reboot, and rate my site, and check out the other 1400+ sites that have been rebooted, and be sure to give those designers, who probably blow my skills out of the water, some props too.

The leave of absence that I’ve been taking from the site as of late isn’t entirely intentional, but rather, it’s just a side effect of my recent schedule. I still haven’t been working, but I found out on Friday that I’ll be traveling to, literally, my Southbound Home, Jackson, MS. I’ll be there through next Sunday, when I’ll be traveling back home. I’ve enjoyed my paid time off over the last few months, but I’m definitely a very ready to get back to work, so that my brain doesn’t completely melt and begin to ooze out of my ears.

I have been quite busy though, working on my redesign for the May 1st CSS Reboot. Or rather, working on my second redesign for the May 1st CSS Reboot, as the first attempt at a redesign left me unimpressed with myself, and thoroughly unsatisfied. However, I’ve come up with a design that I think is very nice, and that, more importantly, I really like. So it’s just a matter of time before I get the coding finished, depending when from here on out I’ll be able to get enough time to do so. I’ve also got quite a few other projects going on, as I need to do a bit of work on a few of the other sites that I designed and that I currently maintain. The Southbound Network is strong, and ever-changing, folks.

Other than that, I’ve been watching a lot of March Madness on television. It’s great to have a roommate that’s even more into college basketball than I am, because when I do really get into it (i.e. post-season tournament time) he’s right there with me. Our entire schedule has revolved around basketball over the last four days.

So you can see where I might not have been able to find the time to give the site the proper amount of attention that it needs. But don’t fear, because while I may not be posting too much between now and May 1st, everything will be back to my version of normal very shortly.

The idea for CSS Reboot is simple: on May 1st, participants launch a newly redesigned site for all to see. CSS Reboot is in its second successful year, with previous reboots coming in May and November of ‘05. The idea of an internet -wide launch of same day redesigns is not a new one, but CSS Reboot is the first such site to focus on CSS and standards based web design, and that is, in part, why I’ve decided to participate in the upcoming May 1st ‘reboot’. In addition, CSS Reboot succeeds in serving three important purposes for the web community:

It Showcases CSS

Despite being around for a while, and being the standard for web design among a small, but growing, group of designers, CSS is still working to gain web-wide acceptance. CSS Reboot is a way for designers to show the potential for CSS visual beauty and, in conjunction with XHTML, accessability and usability in design.

It Showcases Emerging Design Trends

Web design, like any style based application, relies heavily on almost seasonal trends and techniques, which are thrown into site after site, until the eventual oversaturation occurs, and then become absolutely obsolete mere months later (for instance, excessive drop shadows and gradients are sooo 2005, and apparently large fonts are in for 2006). CSS Reboot allows for designers to push innovation, as they are able to view, and subsequently be inspired by and build upon, techniques put into practice by other forward thinking designers.

It Showcases Emerging Designers

With the size of the Web today, very many quality sites are overlooked, and very many extraordinary designers are passed over simply because they don’[t have a popular platform available to express their skills. CSS Reboot gives designers that platform, in addition to giving non-professional designers (such as myself) a chance to satisfy their jones for attention.

So what do I have in mind for the Southbound Home redesign? Quite a drastic change, actually, and around 60 days to implement and fine tune it. But you’ll just have to wait until May 1st to see it.