Being a web designer has its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, you definitely have a feeling of accomplishment in being able to take a blank screen and transform it into an online masterpiece that will be viewed by thousands or hopefully millions of people. On the other hand, you’ll often find yourself becoming overly diagnostic towards with your own work. Web designers are often their own worst critics.
A Quick Rant
I feel like an artist because I am one, it’s just that my paint brush and canvas are are in the digital world. Web design isn’t something that everybody can do (although when you see some of the sites out there on the web, you would think so). A few words of wisdom to the many would-be web designers out there – please don’t.
If someone really wants to work at it and learn how to design, that’s fine. I encourage everyone to learn as much as they can and to keep learning. Just don’t announce to the world that your God’s gift to the internet when you’re still publishing websites with flashing text, bordered frames, and goofy little animated GIFs. I could list several websites that fall into this category, but i won’t since some of those same websites belong to lawyers.
The Website Makeover
I often look at my own websites and ask myself how I can improve their appearance, functionality, load times, navigation, etc. A few weeks ago, I decided to redesign my Apheus.com website – the main portal for my website design business. I guess you could say that I’m a restless designer – I’m never satisfied and new ideas are constantly popping into my head. As a web designer, this obviously comes naturally. At the end of the day, I have to force myself to settle on one design and stick with it.
One of the most popular services I offer is the website makeover. This is where I take an existing website and give it a total makeover from top to bottom. I hate to say this, but if you’ve ever seen one of those makeovers on an afternoon talk show, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. My own websites are not immune – as styles change, I make changes to keep up with the trends (so long as they make sense). Some changes are subtle, but most of the time I’ll just jump in head first and do a total redesign.
The New Apheus Design
The newest Apheus website is an example of a total website makeover. I stepped away from the dark background that I’ve used since almost the beginning and decided to go with a white background in the main content areas. Since Apheus’ new eco-friendly ApheGreen website hosting service will be launched soon, I decided to go with an more natural look with blue skys and green grass. One of my original concepts even had dirt with grass roots in the footer background. But I opted not to go to that extreme. The turning point was when I thought about adding a worm burrowing its way through the dirt. OK, I won’t lie – I put the worm in there. Thankfully, I was able to reel myself in before I settled on the final design.
The latest incarnation (I’m now on the 9th version) is built on the Concrete5 CMS platform. I will continue to praise Concrete5 for its simplicity and features. I integrated a couple of add-ons from the Concrete5 Marketplace and I’m happy with the results. If you would like your own website built using what I consider to be the best content management system, Apheus has an affordable Concrete5 Design Pack just for you.
I was so confident in my design and my faith in Concrete5 is strong enough that I decided to switch over to the new design just a few hours before I left on vacation without a great deal of testing. So far, so good – I haven’t noticed any errors and my 301 redirects are working just fine. I’m really happy with the new Apheus website and I know that several people have made comments in that regard. Is it time to start working on version 10? Probably not for awhile, but the last version only lasted 7 months, so you never know!
My Next Website Makeover Project
I’ve decided that I need to make the Apheus family of websites more consistent in their designs – all matching the main Apheus website. In trying to form a brand image for the company, I think this is very important. The next website makeover I’m going to tackle is the redesign of this blog. It shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish since WordPress is so nice to work with – maybe not as easy as Concrete5, but I’m sure I’ll manage!
Just a quick update, I actually didn’t use the same theme as the main Apheus website. In fact, I went with the design used on ArgosPC.com – the whole story is right here: http://www.myapheus.com/its-a-whole-new-look/
Oh, a wonderful text! No idea how you were able to say this article..it’d take me long hours. Well worth it though, I’d assume. Have you considered selling banners on your website?
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