So, I got the itch again.
After what was generally considered to be a concept that was good in theory but very poorly executed, I’ve gone back to my roots on the latest revision of the site. I’ve also made an effort (however misguided) to spend the time to do this one right. It’s about 85% there (unfortunately blogging about my shortcomings doesn’t pay the bills) but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
Purpose of the redesign
The “big idea” for this design dates back to my days in high school. I’ve always been interested in living one’s life in a purposeful way. The first visible manifestation of that was the “Sean Improvement Project” during high school in which I systematically worked on skills that I deemed important at the time (primarily with the admitted goal of making my antisocial, dorky self more attractive to the opposite gender.) It carried over to college when I simultaneously became a disciple of Tom Peters’ personal branding ideas and Richard Foster’s celebration of discipline. While the outward effects have been many and varied, the idea that I have a choice in how I carry myself and how I handle my work, relationships and life has been firmly ingrained for years.
During the days of my first business venture with Matt, I created the beginnings of a brand identity based on the silhouetted man you see above. More than anything, we wanted our company to be an expression of our values and beliefs. We wanted to project confidence, poise, mastery, and honor in everything that we did. This little man represented a lot of what we believed to be great about the world of business, and was a reflection of how we wanted to see ourselves. While the company crashed and burned in the end, the idea remained.
So with this redesign comes a renewal of focus. As I’ve mentioned before, the past year of my life has been better than I could have possibly imagined. I work when I want on projects I want, and get to spend time with the woman of my dreams. But in the past 8 months, what have I done with this freedom? How have I turned this energy out into the world, how have I made my life and the lives of those I love better?
I haven’t – I’ve gained weight, I’ve not pursued any activities outside of business to stretch myself or grow as a person, and I’ve become a more absent friend than ever.
With freedom comes responsibility. I waste an enormous amount of time reading Digg, filling my time up with meaningless and unproductive work. I can do better.
So intentionally will focus more on my pursuit of things that truly matter. It will be about my attempts to improve my life in all its aspects. It will be about what I do to improve the world around me. And, I hope, it will be about how you can do the same.
Hey, some people want to know
Finally, a couple notes for those who care:
- Inspiration for the redesign comes primarily from Sean Sperte (for getting me hooked on typography again) and the always brilliant Dan Cederholm, whose books taught me basically everything I know. Thanks guys.
- Contemplated switching from WordPress to Garrett Murray’s SimpleLog until I realized that I’ve actually been really happy with WordPress. While i love SimpleLog’s interface and am looking forward to using it on a project in the near future, sometimes the desire to tinker can get the better of you (see my last redesign.)
- I’m working on incorporating a variety of microformats into this iteration – I’ve used hcard in the past but haven’t really been immersed in the revolution until now. The site has incorporated rel-tag and XFN, and will be adding hcard, hresume and likely hreview as well. If you’re looking for a good resource on Microformats, I wholeheartedly recommend the new book of the same name. Tore through it in three days. Because I’m a nerd.
- I’ve spent time trying to make the site more typographically correct. Not being terribly advanced in this regard I know I’ve failed in a lot of ways (and would love your feedback on improving it.)
- There will continue to be tweaks, as things are a bit buggy still. I wanted to get it up today 1) for the reboot and 2) so I could see it live and get feedback. The rough patches should smooth out over the next few weeks.
This represents the sixth revision of this site since 2003, and is admittedly my favorite. For both of you out there who really preferred the orange, I apologize. The name of the site is intentionally, and red was intentionally chosen to communicate passion, drive, etc. Orange communicates that I used orange.
