I’ve been working on something that I like a lot. It’s a redesign of this of this blog and I’m hoping to have it done by Easter. I am coding the thing in HTML5 and throwing in a bunch of CSS3 styling and effects. So far the buildout has been going pretty well. I am learning a lot, using a bunch of new WordPress 2.9 functions, getting into HTML5 and unlearning old XHTML habits. Or at least trying to.

The new design will have a lot more focus on my portfolio, pushing toward getting some freelance projects moving. Not that I really have time right now with the new job and grad school – but I will need something at some point.

So anyway. Here’s a sneak peek.

Some really interesting metrics from JESS3 for AIGA on the state of the internet.

JESS3 – the State of The Internet by JESS3 for AIGA Baltimore

This week has been absolutely great. I received a lot of good news, had friends over for dinner, got a lot done at work, played LEGO Rock Band… And now I’m ready for a weekend of working for myself.

My first task this weekend is to get the tea@elevensies site up and running. It’s taken too long and I feel bad. But I did have a rough stretch the past six months or so that deterred me from getting it all wrapped up — still, not a good excuse. This weekend is the weekend, however, to bust out this site for Ashley and Char. And then probably see what Ash wants to change (she apparently is over her design now). But at least it will be another project down.

The second issue I’m going to try to wrap up is this site. I’ve got most of a new design mocked up and sitting in Photoshop, just waiting for me to bring it to life in HTML5 and CSS3. So this site will change in the near future. And for the better, I think.

Third, I need get started on redesigning Jessica’s blog. Her new branding is amazing and I want to get it up and running for her, as well as a complete graphics package for her Etsy shop.

It is nice to have some time to work on personal design and coding. Stress is gone, and that goes a long way toward the proper motivation in these sorts of situations. Things are exciting!

There’s been a lull here. I apologize.

I’m working on some design changes around here and the time put into that takes away from my actual writing. But I think the coming updates will be worth it. I’m excited to build out the new blog template and take advantage of some of the new WordPress 2.9 features.

The decision to redesign came partly out of my wanton love for redesigning this site (it’ll have been a year this Easter since the last one!) and the fact that the portfolio aspects of this site kind of blow. So, we’re going to fix all of that. Hopefully for the better.

I’ve got a couple other exciting prospects coming up and I start grad school in about a week. So I will be BUSY this year. But I’m also really excited about what 2010 is going to bring. I have high hopes and a renewed desire to keep moving. Jessica and I are going to learn French this year.

Speaking of Jessica, I will be working on a redesign of her website and Etsy shop branding this month and next. Our friend Ashley did an amazing job of developing a logo and branding for her business in exchange for a WordPress template buildout. So look for all of that in the coming weeks.

We had a great three week vacation and are glad to be home with our puppy, coffee maker, and consistent internet.

ATTN: Those who have read/are planning to read my novel this year:

Oh some things have changed. Yes, yes they have.

When I thought about how messy the whole noveling on my blog process was last year, I made a rash decision. A decision with so little thought put into it that it is awesome. Instead of noveling my progress here, I have set up a completely new site with a completely new theme with awesome features.

All NaNoWriMo noveling will take place here: nanowrimo.thegoodmanblog.com.

Oh but that’s not all. I have built an entire WordPress template especially for National Novel Writing Month – and more specifically for my fellow WriMos that post to WordPress.

The new theme is called Modern Linguist and is based on Chris Coyier’s WPTypo theme, though with some decidedly drastic alterations. Notably, the theme has these amazing features:

• Built-in word counts pulled from the NaNoWriMo API (as soon as it’s activated for 2009, anyway)
• Clean, minimal interface. Not widgetized as to keep it focused on your novel(s)
• Choose-your-own Font Style with 8 (eight!) different typefaces
• Width optimized for online reading
• Typography based – no images in the template by default
• Optional Synopsis display on the front page
• Yearly category navigation (for easy novel separation)
• Special displays for registered/logged-in users

It’ll not only be a better experience for readers, but also for the person doing the noveling.

I’m looking at a launch date of 30 October, just in time for NaNoWriMo (which starts on the first of November). If you’re interested in using the template, let me know in the comments and I’ll make sure answer your questions and email the theme to you when it’s done!

For all of you that had an account here on my blog, that’s all been moved over to: http://nanowrimo.thegoodmanblog.com – you can login with your same credentials and should be able to read last year’s novel still. If you have issues, shoot me an email.

If any of you check out the new template, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

And for those of you who have no idea what I’ve been talking about, read this post.

In a couple of weeks I will making my initial foray into college-level teaching. Last week I signed my first adjunct contract to teach Web Page Design to a group of Sophomores through Seniors. I am really excited about this job, to tell the truth. I think it’ll be a lot of fun and a good experience for me as a designer.

The class is once a week on Monday evenings for three hours. It’s an introductory web design class, so I’ll be teaching the most basic of XHTML and CSS. But I am hoping that this group of Digital Media students will catch on quickly enough that we can really get into the cool stuff.

Beyond markup and stylesheets I will be teaching them some design. Some actual design. Because I think that’s part of what the class has been lacking (from the students I’ve known in previous classes). The students in my class will be following good design blogs and hopefully learning some trends.

As a new teacher I think I’m lucky to have such great online resources available, in the form of so many design blogs.

Is there anything specific you would want to learn in a class like this if, of course, you were taking it? I’d be interested to know what you think is important.

Wow. What a couple of weeks it’s been.

First, we launched the new site at work. And overall the response was good, until it got bad. So my “team” and I had to hustle to get more content up and certain features working. There was a lot more drama than that, and if you work in Higher Education you’ll understand the true weight of that statement. But in the end, it’s up and we’re really close to being content complete. Once that happens we can put our focus on developing features that are on deck. Check out the site here.

That’s taken up the bulk of my life. But, with the stress and all, I managed to take a day off in the middle of it for some sweet mental respite. Jess and I went to Six Flags St Louis (I got cheap tickets over Twitter) and had a great time. It’s a small park but has some fun coasters. It seemed kind of like a miniature Magic Mountain (SoCal). My favourite Six Flags coaster, Batman: The Ride, has a version at St Louis — in fact, it seems to have all the same features, it’s just slower and smaller and shorter. Six Flags St Louis also has a ride called Ninja (not the same as the Magic Mountain Ninja) which is a miniature Viper. Same elements just on a smaller scale. It’s also, again, slower but just as jerky and rough as Viper. Overall we had a great time though and even were able to go get me a new pair of trousers for work as well as a new polo shirt.

It was a great break for me and left me a bit more energized and ready to get back into the site.

This weekend — a long weekend due to Independence Day — we’ve been trying to relax a bit. I got a haircut and shaved my beard today. The results:

Shaved and Cut

And I’m happy with it this time. Figured, my hair is short enough, it’s effing hot outside… might as well shave the beard. So I did. Last time I wasn’t so happy with the shave.

I made chicken tacos for dinner and we are watching Leatherheads. I also have been working on a new design for a church I’m working with here in town. You can take a look at their current site and then look at what I’m putting together and make your judgement. So far I think I’m pretty happy with the new design. And I think they will be too.

The goal is to get the design done this weekend and to start the coding for the site. Huzzah.

And for the Fourth we are going to hang out with some friends and watch the fireworks in St Louis. Should be a lot of fun.

What have you been up to? Anything fun? Any good barbecues planned?

DeanFields.com

Hey, hey. We just launched a new site built on WordPress and using my Prodigious theme.

I built the site for this guy called Dean Fields. He plays some pretty awesome folk-Americana-alt.country sort of music that you should check out. And you should also check out his fantastic new site.

A couple of things: Contrary to what the listing in portofolio says, we didn’t use the Gigs Calendar plugin (which is fantastic, by the way). Dean had a thing going with this ArtistData.com website and he organized all his shows there. The site was a bit tough to work with but I was able to get a raw XML feed to parse for the Upcoming Shows feature. That’s probably what took the longest. The “all shows” view is just an iframe from Artist Data — which I kind of hated to do, but it was the easiest and nicest looking solution.

As far as browsers go, I haven’t done much debugging for IE7 yet. But if you’re here reading my blog you probably don’t use IE7 regularly. Looks great in Safari and Firefox.

The “photo” on the front uses the jQuery Cycle plugin. It’s super cool and I’ve used it on a couple of other projects.

In any case, go check out his new site and his music!

www.deanfields.com

Um, so I need a vector drawing done for a new project.

If you’re interested in having some fun doing a small logo-ish illustration and/or want to do me a favour, I’d appreciate it. I kind of suck at Illustrator (most of the time).

I hate having the idea in my head and not being able to put it on a digital canvas. But… yeah. Maybe I should just practice more.

I have a fun new site coming out soon I think… I’m a little excited about it.