After several months of doing nothing with my site, I finally decided to get off my keister and do something about it. I opened up Photoshop and stared blankly at the canvas. I was eager to design something. But what? A blog was certain but how far did I want to go? Did I want a portfolio? What about page archives? Search? What about all those third party contraptions, like Twitter and Flickr? Surely I might need all those things.
I spent far too much time in Photoshop, creating comp after comp after comp. I made the designs based off my old site, underwater themes, random color themes and more. I trawled through hundred of other sites, my eyes bleeding and my mouse-hand numb. There were all these sites that other people had made and there I was, not really doing what I had set out to do. Blog.
I decided enough was enough. What good would the site be if I wouldn’t use it? Would I really want to maintain my portfolio? Was I really convinced that I would keep a mini-blog up-to-date? I cut my feature list back to its barest essentials, namely the blog post, comments and some links to my friends. I picked a simple design that employed my favorite colors. Once I had a clear vision the fever took over and bit by bit the site began to take shape.
It only took a few minutes with (mt)’s helpful control panel to get my database setup. A quick hop over to Expression Engine and I had my blogging engine of choice. 50 minutes later I had the essence of my site completed. A few days of tweaking and polishing and finally I was ready to blog.
I really couldn’t be happier. I’ve decided to keep things as simple as possible and let the site grow organically. If I create enough posts to warrant archives and a search I’ll get right on it. If Twitter steals my soul and sucks me into it’s depraved voids then I’m sure a little blue bird might soon be perched here. Until then, I’ll just keep blogging away.
Comments
- 10 Comments
Kevin S Sat Jan 19 2008 at 08:35 pm
Looks nice. I like the gray and the fact that you dropped the pink 
Michael Sigler Sat Jan 19 2008 at 09:17 pm
Thanks guys. I’ll continue tweaking a bit here and there. Not sure what Kevin has against pink though.
I’ll definitely pick up that shirt. Thanks Varner.
chriskalani Sat Jan 19 2008 at 11:31 pm
Dude, it is looking sweet! It only took you the entire time I have known you to get it done. haha. Designing for yourself is like the worst thing ever.
Dawn Foster Sun Jan 20 2008 at 07:23 am
The blog looks sweet! I’ve also been playing with a redesign on mine (it’s going slowly).
But yeah, the feed seems to be mangled. Weird. Justin is a wiz with feeds - I’m sure he can help. I’d also be happy to take a look to see if I see anything wrong. What’s the source feed that feedburner is using (IM it to me when you drag your lazy butt outta bed) 
Mom Sun Jan 27 2008 at 07:47 pm
But I miss seeing your portfolio. Where can I go nw to see my talented son’s artwork???
Michael Sigler Mon Jan 28 2008 at 09:55 am
It’ll be up eventually. That’s what I meant by iterative development. Oh and HI MOM!
Prasala Sun Jul 27 2008 at 11:32 pm
This article reflects how technically it has been written .Yet, It has made all the readers easily understand.It is very much useful.
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Welcome
I am Michael Sigler and this is my blog. I am a designer, artist, art director, writer, dungeon master and all around geek. I live in Portland, OR with my wife Joleine. During the day I work for the fine folks at Jive Software.
On the interwebs
Projects
These are the communities and projects that I proudly help lead and maintain.
Dragon Avenue
A community and news site for fans of Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games.
Refresh Portland
A monthly gathering focused on spreading a little design knowledge to the dark corners of Portland, OR.
Andrew V Sat Jan 19 2008 at 08:11 pm
Nice work, Michael. I started a work related blog and a personal blog, then my site upgraded their ruby gems and they both went down. Of course, I only had one post on each, so no biggie. =)
You’ll need to pick up one of these if you want to be a true blogger…
http://www.jinx.com/men/shirts/geek/nobody_reads_my_blog.html?catid=1