Method in my modness (designing Stuff and Nonsense 2009)
It’s here — months in the planning and weeks in the making — the new Stuff and Nonsense. The new design is a continuation of my efforts to blend professional and personal styles into a brand that is as much about my personality and interests as it is about our work.
From the home page down, the new Stuff and Nonsense builds on the previous design, including Kevin Cornell‘s wonderful illustrations and hand-drawn, 1950’s motoring badge logo. The site’s main navigation and footer share DNA with my recent redesigns of For A Beautiful Web and Transcending CSS.
The new Stuff and Nonsense home page 2009
Stuff and Nonsense home page 2007–2009
Malarkey Rides Again
Remember my old blog? The big news? And All That Malarkey is back. I couldn’t have known when I (hastily) took the site offline, how much I would miss it. Other people missed it too and the archives still receive enough traffic to make me glad that I have a fantastic relationship with my hosting company. Now it’s time to rev up the engine on the old girl again.
And All That Malarkey 2004–2007
The new And All That Malarkey borrows heavily from the old, including the quirky three column layout (now fully liquid), found images and entry issue numbers (now repurposed as short URL links).
The new And All That Malarkey 2009
Slowly but surely, five years of blog entries and their comments are being brought into our ExpressionEngine publishing system (more on that in just a moment). Owen Gregory has excelled himself (again) in implementing a dual-purpose entry template. One design is for new entries.
New blog entries
The other design is for older entries prior to 2007 and this harks back to the full modness of All That Malarkey but stills lives well alongside the new design.
Older blog entries
ExpressionEngine
The new Stuff and Nonsense site shares DNA with both For A Beautiful Web and Transcending CSS. All are built on a single ExpressionEngine Multiple Site Manager installation that has allowed me to share templates and content across all three sites. As an author and as a business person, this not only makes life easier but also helps to serve my content to different audiences.
ExpressionEngine made it simple to serve only relevant categories of content to a particular site, while some are shared across all three sites. Plus, when you leave a comment on one site it will appear on them all, with a link back to the site specific entry you commented on.
Feeds
With my three sites in place, it was time to consolidate RSS and Atom feeds. Relevant blog entry and master class dates feeds will continue on For A Beautiful Web. But if you want the full, all you can eat buffet of my content, there are new feeds here at Stuff and Nonsense. I hope you’ll update to the new feeds.
- And All That Malarkey RSS
- And All That Malarkey Atom
- For A Beautiful Web master classes RSS
- For A Beautiful Web master classes Atom
A little of our recent work
I’ve never been entirely happy with the work portfolio on any of my sites. Often the temptation when making a web design portfolio is to include screen captures that never truly reflect the fact that we design web pages. This time I have largely abandoned screen captures and instead designed art directed portfolio panels that better illustrate the real character of the projects that we work on. It’s a different approach and I’ll be very interested in hearing what readers (and clients) make of it.
Our work, portfolio panels
Revved up
There is still plenty of work to be done on the site, but for now I’m revved up about having a new ride. Kick the tires, just don’t scratch my paintwork.