Ten Years Later
Yesterday I relaunched my website. “Relaunched” isn’t really the right word. “Refined” is more accurate. Ten years ago, I published it in the form it was in until yesterday, and I haven’t done a major redesign since then. What has changed most over the last ten years is my portfolio, which has grown significantly thanks to the many app icon projects I’ve had the opportunity to work on. The design itself has remained essentially the same, aside from a major update two or three years ago, when I added custom cursors throughout the site.
The Website Revamp
I’d been thinking about a new, or at least slightly modified, website for quite some time. I think every designer knows this: you’re never really done with your portfolio or website. It’s almost a running joke among us. But when I honestly look back on the last ten years, I was absolutely satisfied with my site and never felt the need for a complete redesign. That’s precisely why I didn’t go through with one this time. I liked the design. I thought it was timeless, and several clients have told me over the years that the site suits me well. It was just the content that wasn’t quite right anymore.
That’s why I refined the content in certain areas. “Portfolio” became “Work”, and it was important to me to noticeably shift the focus: away from just app icons, toward the apps I build myself. The old site hadn’t reflected that at all. I kept yellow as the main color simply because it’s my favourite color. My header stayed too, though I’ve highlighted it anew to more clearly show where my actual priorities lie. The projects are also no longer listed one after another but arranged in tiles, making better use of screen space. In many places, I’ve tried to introduce more consistency and more detail. Basically, the whole thing was a major polish, fine-tuning the edges.
When you scroll through your own work after ten years, it’s a bit of a trip down memory lane, full of nostalgia for cool projects and cool people I got to meet along the way. I’m still proud of that, and I’m happy to show it off. At the same time, I wanted to make it clearer that my skills aren’t limited to app icons. As I’ve taken on more and more personal projects, it’s become increasingly difficult to find them. The website is now meant to serve as a hub for what I do because I think these things are cool and believe I can help others with the tools I’m currently building.
The New Blog
As part of the redesign, I’ve also added a blog: my very first one. I’m noticing a strong trend right now where people are rediscovering the web for themselves and want to have their space, independent of the big social networks and without having to hand over their data to them. And longer posts are no longer shared as threads but end up as articles on people’s own blogs. I think that’s great. I’ve never had a blog myself, but lately, I’ve felt an increasing desire to share the experiences I’ve gathered building apps, and, ideally, to help others who run into the same problems. I don’t know 100 percent yet what exactly will come of it; we’ll just have to see.
The tools available today to take an idea from concept to finished product have become so accessible that it would almost be a shame not to use them. The barrier to entry has dropped so low that it really just comes down to overcoming your own inner resistance. That’s precisely what I want to overcome with this blog: just do it and publish, instead of endlessly overthinking the next article in my head. I’m excited about this new space and can’t wait to see where it takes me from here.