It’s just two days past the anniversary of andylaub dot com v.8. It was the first full site design I did in CSS, and I still really like it. It took me probably a week or two of work from inception to launch, and it makes me wonder what has happened to my design skills when I return to this newest version.
It seems that the more I learn about CSS the more inclined I am to use that instead of any kind of actual layout program, and while it seems to be working OK, suddenly the site launches and I hate it. Part of that is a result of general frustration with every site implementation since 8.5, the version I did for the Reboot. I didn’t really like that one all that much and I haven’t been a huge fan of any of the WordPress-enabled versions.
With 8.5 it was just too bizarre a concept, and a result of being chained to the HTML that was already there. With the others the mistake I made was jumping straight from concept sketches to a final version without mocking anything up beforehand. That left CSS responsible for most of the elements and that resulted in sites that didn’t sit well with me for long (hence the jump through 4 versions in half a year). You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now, but current evidence shows that I certainly haven’t.
That might sound fickle, but what’s strange is that I can go back and look at all the microsites I did at work and be quite happy with most of them. The reason? Every single one originated in ImageReady (Photoshop’s web-oriented sister) and was then translated to HTML. Almost none use CSS. It’s totally opposite from what I have here, and maybe that’s why I have what I have here.
What I need to do then, is literally go back to the drawing board, and not rely on CSS for (all) my design elements.