June 2020
My web site was perfectly fine. But the makers of the WordPress theme said, “We’re done. Good luck keeping things up and running with no updates coming any more.” Then Sylvia said, “Your site’s looking a little dated.” What? It’s FOUR YEARS OLD! Even in dog years, it’s barely old enough to run for Congress. Sure it’s old—if it’s a fruit fly.
Yeah, it was time for a new fruit fly.
Fortunately, the webworld has become a rosier place for print designers that are used to putting things where they want, and having a choice of more than six fonts. Plus I’d been designing sites on a total boss-daddy platform and knew more/better was doable. I wasn’t on the part of the learning curve that demands a parachute, but I still brought pitons.
Step 1 was devising a color palette. Let’s use all of them, shall we? That ought to do it. Step 1, done!
Step 2: build the home page. Oh, yeah, let’s have lots of logos animate, appearing slowly against the background. So cool! It’s thrilling on my monitor, awkward on a tablet, and on a phone, it looks like all the elements were swallowed whole, vomited back up—and not in an a tidy way—then displayed under a microscope. Hm. Let’s revisit that later.
Nine years of newsletters had been sent out on three different platforms, so there are multiple looks. Hey, you can’t change history. Neither can I, so I won’t. Next!
Gotta have testimonials. If only I had head shots, to show they’re all real people. I’ll use pictures of their projects instead! So if one of my clients looks like Cosette from Les Miserables, that’s why. It may look like I’m accepting work from 19th-century fictional juveniles, but I’m not. That would be wrong.
The comic-story about the plucky marketing director translated from the old site well. Not needing to rebuild it means there is a god! Proof positive! Its name is Carl, and He feels beloved when His followers drink dark beer, as a form of frothy prayer. Don’t cut corners when researching which religion is right for you!
What should be the main image on my “About” page? Why, a 30-year old drawing of my ear, of course. That one was obvious. Despite its age, it still looks like me. My family is blessed with ears that maintain their youthful vitality and vigor well into the wrinkly years.
Okay, now that everything’s done, I have to go back to that home page problem. The solution: make three images, each for a different device, with each made invisible on the machines that it doesn’t look good on. Shown here is the back end, seen at monitor aspect ratio. Since the tablet and phone versions have been trained to go into their rooms and keep quiet when the big screen is active, they’re meekly grayed out. We’re live!
The best part about having mind-twisting technical problems, is when they’re finally solved, it feels so good. I don’t keep hammers around the house because I’d whack a finger or two on a daily basis, just to experience the pain melting away.
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