Redswish

10 Dec 09 1 lonely comment

The new site

Hey folks.

A dash of the past and the road ahead

My tardyness is beginning to precede me and I’m tired of apologising for it. Aside from complaining about how busy I am and continuing to craft weak excuses as to why the site’s upkeep has taken a nosedive over the past 6-8 months, backed up by tedious promises of upcoming content; I’ll instead bestow you with a little update of where Redswish will be heading in the future and hopefully inspire you to stick with me and stay, if only mildly, interested.

The site started off as an experiement nearly 2 years ago, a blind date with blogging. I discovered that I enjoyed it and apparantly so did those taking the time to read my babble; so I stuck at it and tried to figure a solid direction for the website. However, as Redswish is almost exclusively the ramblings of a sole young fluttering designery type, me, a solid direction has been difficult to establish as my own direction in life tends to waver all over the place (future employers beware!).

I’ve realised it’s best to concentrate on topics surrounding what I do on a day-to-day basis, which ranges from creative and marketing strategy through web design to front-end development, and even a dabble in backend on occaision. But I’m not keen on writing about code; there are more than enough resources on the web to cover all those bases, and I learned early on that tutorials are better handled by those with more time on their hands than me. Lists… lists are the bane of my fucking life. On only the rarest occaision do I find lists of any relevance or use.

So seeing as though I tend to like the sound of my own voice so much; I’ve decided that, as it has very much over the past 10 months or so, the subject matter of the site will be mostly opinionated articles discussing online marketing, design, advertising, web culture, life experience, business and hopefully almost everything else that slips in the gaps between those delicate topics.

Design direction

At the time of writing there are still a few areas of the site requiring a tidy up, these will be addressed this weekend. Most designers will agree with me; no matter how hard you try you’re never happy with your own work. Especially at my age and level of industry experience I’m progressing at a pace that causes me to, on a rather regular basis, look back at my work of the past 3 months / 6 months / year and yell ‘what the fuck was I thinking?’. That thought had been creeping into my head for a while regarding this site. It was getting messy, it needed a new coat of paint. I could do better.

Hence why I refer to the new site as ‘a new site’. The content’s still the same but the direction has been redefined, the visuals have been refreshed and, after 3 months traveling and falling out of the circuit, it felt time to respark Redswish. Although we’re now drawing to the close of this year I intend to be putting a lot more effort into decent quality writing next year.

I’ve maintained some of the aesthetic values of the previous iteration of the site, notably the red/beige/white colour scheme. However, in an attempt to draw more attention to the content itself, I’ve included a ‘featured article’ banner at the top of the homepage and scaled back the clutter of the sidebar. I’ve also attempted to harness the power of whitespace to draw the eye to the post content itself, and made the personal decision to opt for serif typography as opposed to more monitor-friendly sans-serif fonts. The reason for this, I feel, was to establish a connection with written word on print, plus I feel it looks more ‘mature’ – more professional.

I added the red swirls in the header to break away from the site seeming too minimal or bland. Plus I like swirls. In 6 months I’ll probably hate them. The new logo on the other hand was for entirely personal reasons. I hated the old one. I felt a tug of regret in my stomach every time I glanced at it. “Christ I’ve got to get rid of that”. Hopefully I won’t be saying the same for the new logo in the future but that remains to be seen.

The Law

Redswish hasn’t, and never will, display ads. I’ve never blogged for money, and every time I visit industry blogs crowded with the same awful banners and mulicoloured sidebar ad blocks clamouring for space I’m filled with a sudden urge to hit my monitor. Don’t expect competitions or giveaways and I wouldn’t hold out for polls, surveys or comment comps. Not to sound old fashioned but I simply want to express my opinions on the industry, spare advice, experiences and stories that others will hopefully find interesting and relevant, and in turn provoke readers to share their own feedback and thoughts on such matters.

I’m more than happy enough to collaborate on articles and introduce guest authors, in fact it’s quite an honour. So if you fancy a natter give me a shout and we can sort something out.

Thanks, once again, for reading,

Nathan

1 lonely comment