(Another) Fresh Start
Where I talk about my poor website maintenance track record and what is next.
I've proven over and over that, while I am a pretty good designer, I am absolute shit at staying on top of my web presence. So bad, in fact, that I let my longstanding (18 years!) domain registration lapse and was unable to to save it before it got scooped up by some shady operator. This is a post for later.
But it's alright. Things must change. Which is why I am typing this. Recently, felt compelled to share more online, which I'm attributing to a couple of things...
- I have a kid now. As you may have heard from others, it's a perspective shift that inspires boundless hope and brain-freezing fear. There's a lot there. And he's amazing.
- I have quit the socials. I think the catalyst here was Musk's takeover of Twitter, which made me think a lot more about my personal data. I was less worried about the privacy and more incensed by people's data serving as raw material which turns dickheads into billionaires. Multiply that by the fact that social media (perhaps the entire news cycle) is designed to make us all insane. This is a safer place.
- I'm making things again. Creative productivity took a nosedive after the baby arrived. But now that we're in daycare part of the week, and my partner is get back into the swing of her studio process, the projects have returned. Mostly woodworking for the time being, but I have been wanting to get my hands back into illustration and code. I will do my best to record that as it comes.
- I have feelings about my design career, craft, and the industry in general. I can't claim to have a unique or compelling voice on these matters but I am still trying to figure out whether I am a careerist designer. Plus, the world keeps-a-changing.
So next – where to publish? I decided not to build a custom Wordpress or Craft site this time. While I love the exercise, I get so so distracted with design and code of it all. I think it would hurt the quality of content and the habit I'm trying to build here.
I ended up choosing Ghost, which I had flirted with in the past but scared off by its lack of a free option. It's also a bit more oriented toward the subscription-for-profit model, which I am not sure is suited for me. But its spartan-yet-usable UI won me over and the subscription and newsletter functionality has sparked a bit of curiosity. We'll see!
Anyway, if you know me and have visited my websites in the past, welcome back. If this is your first time seeing anything I've built, designed, or written, I'm happy you're here.❖