It has been bugging me for months that my permalinks said very little about what they were linking to. Prior to today, my links looked like this:

http://www.barrettcreates.com/blog/?p=5

You know you want to click on that. I bet you are thinking right now, “What will I find if I click on that link?” Are you brave enough to find out? It could be anything really…

I am happy to report that now my links look like this:

http://www.barrettcreates.com/blog/barrettcreatescom-gets-a-new-look/

In case you were too afraid to explore the first link, both point to the same article. Is it not nice that the second one actually tells you what the link is about? I have always been the type of person that looks at the bottom left corner of my browser window before I click a link to see where it is going to take me. It has always been a pet peeve of mine when I cannot tell right away what I might find if I click it.

Therefore, this blog entry is to report/celebrate that my site no longer has those cryptic permalinks. It only took a lot of stress, crashing the entire blog and a cry for help with my web host to make it work. I would like to tell you that I am full of knowledge and you can turn to me for the answers if you would like to do the same for your blog. That is not the case here. Maybe somebody out there knows of an easy tutorial just for creating the .htaccess file necessary to make it all work and another tutorial for the proper way of adding it through an FTP client. I thought I had, but in the end none of it turned out to be very useful to me. Even the WordPress plugin I installed did not help me. It required permission to write to the .htaccess file. Does that not make you wonder how you can give it permission? “Yes, you have my permission. Now magically make it work for me.”

Filed under: Web Design || 4 Excellent Comments

barrettcreates.com reached its five-year anniversary about a month ago. I cannot believe it has been that long since I first launched my online graphic design portfolio. What is even more unbelievable is that I have kept the same design that entire time.

The Old Website

My original plan was to create a portal page that gave the user a choice between my Flash portfolio and an HTML version. However, I never got around to creating the HTML option or the portal for that matter. Seems to be a common theme among most designers I know. We get so loaded down with designing for everyone else that our own projects get put on the back burner.

Unfortunately, the last time I tested my Flash site, I realized that it did not work on all operating systems and web browsers anymore. That was not acceptable. I set out to solve that problem.

The New Look

I am happy to announce that I have finally put together an HTML option. Not only that, but I have resuscitated my dying web design skills in the process. Key improvements include:

• The addition of this blog. This has been the biggest challenge for me so far. With the help of WordPress I was able to integrate my blog into my website. I will likely have to work out some bugs, but I am excited to use my blog to create a more interactive environment, talk about my design process, critique other design work, discuss design trends and whatever else I think is relevant to the subject.
• User-friendly layout. Though Flash is, well, flashy, I think it has a lot of downfalls. Most notably, it is not user-friendly. It takes up more disc space and does not work on all computers. I do not like requiring people to download software in order to view my website. I also grew tired of watching my animations. People visiting my website were coming to see my portfolio, they were not coming to witness my mediocre animation ability.
• No more popups. I am not talking about ads — my website has never had ads of any kind. I am talking about my actual portfolio appearing in a popup window. I do not know about you, but I use a popup blocker when surfing the web. I get irritated when I visit a website, click on a link and get the message “Firefox prevented this site from opening a popup window.” This makes me consider, “Do I want to view this page bad enough to unblock it in my preferences or should I move on with my life?” The fact that I was doing the same thing to my own visitors seemed insane to me.
• Real text. HTML and CSS deal with text much better than Flash. I am still experimenting with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but I’m pretty sure this new site is a step in the right direction.

Today is the big unveiling! I went for a simple/no frills look — the purpose of my website is to showcase my design work. I did not want the design of the website competing with my portfolio. The style still works with the rest of my promotional materials and has a more personalized feel than the old website. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions to make it better? Do you like the old Flash version more? Feel free to chime in; I would really like your feedback.

Filed under: Web Design || 2 Excellent Comments