This is my current list of taks that need to be done for my redesign, now that the major layout has been achieved. (its copied & pasted from word, so sry about the grammer/character errors), and I figured this might be interesting reading for any of you who are the same way.
Christopher-Scott.org v 2.0
Needs To Be Done (before launch)
1. Come up with layout for the ‘Portfolio’ section
Put thumbnails (horizontal style) with links, and titles on the sidebar. Have the opening page explain my process, links will open up the portfolio piece like a blog. The title will be the same, there will be numerous screenshots, and the meta-area can be used for tools/skills used (tools: [photoshop cs2, illustrator cs] skills: [css, xhtml 1.0 strict, php, mysql] listings [cssmania, other gallery includes.
2. Create a good ‘About’ page.
Title can be same as blogs, only ‘About Me’. No meta info is needed, so the space can be used for a small photograph (black & white, lightly toned like the meta stuff). The first paragraph will be a brief synopsis and explain the other articles in the ‘About’ section. The other articles will be listed as blogs, with excerpts in logical order.
Ideas for other ‘About’ articles:
• My Bio (personal stuff)
• About this site (colophon, fonts used, colors, how was made, machine, software used etc…)
• My Resources (free web stuff you use, books I’ve read, sites I learn from)
• Online resume (w/ downloadable offline version)
• FAQ
• 404 page (link to it, I think it would be cool)
3. Create working ‘Contact’ page
Design it up good, so that it looks all pretty and nice. Don’t fall into the trap of letting this very important piece of the puzzle looking bland and uninspiring. Make sure the fields and names line up and you show therequired fields with a rust colored asterisk. (make it the same styling as the comments form)
4. Decide on final layout for sidebar on ‘Blog’ section.
Ok here’s what I’m thinking right now:
• About – with small snippet from the first paragraph of about page, & jumping kid picture.
• Latest Project – With one-sentence snippet from the portfolio piece.
• Advertisements – Google ad, redo to fit w/ current color scheme.
• Popular Posts – Best blogs (hand picked at first, eventually changed to a plug-in)
• Categories – Categorical listing (with number of posts next to category), and link to the actual archives.
• Floating Div – The option to include an ad-like div for whatever occasion might arise, a few ideas being:
i. Where did the old layout go? I explain why and how I made the decision to redesign, and what it means for you if you loved the old layout.
ii. I’m getting married! A special section or link to the wedding website.
iii. Happy Christmas! With a link to a special Christmas blog or something.
5. Come up with hr’s
• For inside the blogs
• For between the blogs
• For between the sidebar items (if used)
6. Create favicon
Easy enough.
7. Install and activate all remaining plug-ins
• Excerpts
• Gravatars
• Comments
• Clean feed
• Plugins Installed
• Contact form
• Sitemap
• Archives
8. Fix the primary navigation
9. Style the livesearch
10. Style and Layout the category page
11. Style and layout the archives page (arghhh)
12. Style and layout the ‘newer’ and ‘older’ links
Might look into using icons for those. Spend some time on these, they really do look crappy if not.
13. Style and layout the comments form
Only thing to remember: make it look like a twin of the contact form. All the same.
14. Jumping man icon links to easter egg
Links to something ridiculous like:
• A list of things you don’t know about me
• An online game you play a lot.
• A picture (or gallery) of embarassing photos
• A stumble-upon link to web design stuff.
• A stupid picture or video I love on the internets.
• The colohpon (well now it seems a bit drab doesn’t it.
15. Come up with sidebar for ‘About’ section
An idea: maybe just have the sidebar come down a little bit (just the same about as the about section takes up on the main page), and have like ‘Vitals: height: 172, weight: 155, age 25yrs old, favorite movie, favorite book, etc… Also might include sections (a la sidebar on main page) for myspace profile, technorati profile, and other social networking stuff.
16. Come up with sidebar for ‘Portfolio’ section.
Not too hard, this is where you’ll have the links w/ thumbnails.
17. Come up with sidebar for ‘Contact’ section
Very much like the main sidebar, only shorter and would have these short sections:
• Subscribe to my feed. (with some wording about subscribing, some links to some common subscriber options
• Get updates via email
• Email someone this site
• Google search bar
18. Building should be done at this point.
Now starts the testing/debugging part, and the installation part.
No comments yet
Metadata
Posted
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Category
Site News
Social Bookmarking
del.icio.us,
Newsvine,
StumbleUpon,
digg
