What I Learned Redesigning My Website in an Afternoon
My website needed a makeover, but I had no time. Here’s how I did it Saturday afternoon.
Today I rebuilt my website from scratch in 4 hours.
It was exhilarating. Using tools like Bootstrap and Type-A-Phile, I was able to build the website I wanted in a surprisingly short amount of time. Here’s what I learned from the process.
Bootstrap is Awesome
Bootstrap enables you to build exactly what you want (and it is responsive, for free!) very quickly.
Wait, wait… I know what you may be thinking:
I don’t want to / know how to / think I should use bootstrap because X.
If you are a one-person team, and your project has a content-first solution, there is literally no reason to not use Bootstrap.
Building a website with Bootstrap is lightning fast. No joke.
For example, I knew my website was going to be four pages: Work, Writing, About & Contact.
Work = grid of images showcasing design chops
Writing = list of links to articles/essays I’ve written
About = images and anecdotes that showcasing my personality
Contact = list of links to my social media I want to be contacted at
Since I wanted the visitor to focus on the content, I felt a thin center-column layout was a very appropriate choice. I copied the example page and created a bare-bones template.html file that I used as a starter for the rest of my static pages. Then I simply put my content on the page, and using a little bit of bootstrap’s amazing col-magic, voila!
Does Bootstrap do your job completely for you? No.
Will you have to fine-tune your CSS at the end? Yes.
But it makes web development orders of magnitude faster and easier.
Give it a shot, you won’t be disappointed.
Don’t Skimp on Typography
Here are ten google font pairings you can copy. Or better yet— give your web typography a head start with http://type-a-file.com (this is what I used).
Last year there was some official study on about 45,000 unknowing participants that proved BASKERVILLE is the most BELIEVABLE font. Can you believe that? You better. Why do you think Medium is written in Georgia, which is damn-near Baskerville? Because it looks brilliant. Like Hemingway wrote it. Ain’t no mathematic computer font bullshit here.
There’s enough ugly stuff on the internet. Make your website beautiful.
Ask Up for Feedback
Ask people you respect and admire: ‘I’m redesigning my website, what do you think of X vs. Y?’ Do not post your in-progress designs to your Facebook looking for “GREAT WORK!” “AWSOME” “WOW” comments from friends.
You don’t want validation, you want improvement.
Ask people who you’re afraid of disappointing. Ask people smarter than you. Get some honest feedback, take it with a grain of salt, and implement what makes sense.
Fuck It, Ship It.
Hit creative block? Fuck it, ship it.
Is your dream site only 25% done? Fuck it, ship it.
When you’re done working, push it live. After four hours of sitting in a café hacking away, I cut myself off and uploaded my new site, bugs included.
The most fatal flaw of digital builders is the perfectionist problem.
Put it out there. If there are problems, you’ll HAVE to fix it if it’s live!
If dormant code isn’t ‘just right’, it will sit there and collect dust while you’re busy not getting feedback, not improving, and not moving forward.
My new website, and this article, were published before they were perfect.
I can guarantee I’ll be back to fix screw-ups and make improvements before the vast majority of eventual viewers see it.
If you enjoyed this, check out my blog where I write about designing products. Thanks for reading!
