If you’ve been following my tweets, you may have noticed that last week I launched an overhaul of the CasJam Media site (my freelance web design business / portfolio).
Today I’d like to go over a few of the goals I set out to achieve in this redesign:
Simplify and trim the fat
I wanted (needed) to simplify the site on a number of fronts.
First and foremost, I wanted to scale down the overall site navigation and limit the total number of pages. The new site is a total of six pages including the home page. That’s down from 10+ with several sub-pages. The new top navigation directs the user to the four most commonly sought after things in any web design portfolio site:
- About - Who/what is this company?
- Services – Do they offer what I need?
- Projects – Let’s see some of their work.
- Contact – Time to take action and get in touch.
Simplified maintenance
I also needed to simplify things behind the scenes as well. My last site, despite being run on WordPress, took way too much time for me update each project. I used to cut several images, different sizes, and make long write-ups for each project. Then I’d manually swap in different project images and links for the home page slider. After a while, I stopped updating my portfolio, simply because I didn’t have the time to do all that.
The new site utilizes WordPress 2.9+ post thumbnails, which makes handling images much easier. Project thumbnails dynamically load on the home page and elsewhere, making for less repetitive updating. I also slimmed down the project descriptions (supported by the redesigned layout). It’s much easier for me to quickly update the site as new projects launch.
Simplified content
Catching on to the overall theme now? Overall simplicity was the biggest goal and that went for the site content as well.
First, I decided to do away with the outdated blog on casjam.com. I stopped writing in it months ago, and I knew that I’d never have the time to continue contributing quality content. I plan to focus my blogging efforts here on briancasel.com and guest blogging elsewhere. CasJam.com is now strictly my portfolio and freelance business site.
I also refreshed almost all of the copy for the About and Services pages. Before, I used to list and describe in detail every service remotely related to the realm of web design. That included design, development, marketing, consultation, copywriting, etc. etc. etc. Of course, all of these things go into a freelance web worker’s job description. But I decided on a different approach for this time around.
I boiled all of my services into a 3 categories: WordPress, E-Commerce, and “Everything Else”. For the last year or so, all my projects have been focused around WP or E-Commerce so I wanted to stress the specialization in these areas. The “Everything Else” portion serves to fill in the areas in between, such as email marketing, consultation, etc. Overall, I’m happy with the way all of this info fits nicely onto one page of the site.
Promote the Portfolio
The new site brings the portfolio straight to the forefront. Right on the home page, we have a slider which features 18 projects. This is what most visitors come to see, so it’s right there in front of you as you enter the site.
I must say I’ve been gaining a lot of confidence in my skills as a designer. Before, whether I realized it or not, I seemed to have been tucking my portfolio away in the interior of the site, leaving it in the shadow of lots of copy and bloat. Now, I feel much more comfortable and ready show my recent design work – especially my theme design work for ThemeJam – and I think this redesign reflects that.
What do you think?
I’d love to get some feedback about any aspect of the redesign. Also, if you guys have any questions about how I did things, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m considering a few posts covering the technical aspects of the site, if the interest is there.
