Rough adjustments to projects/features
The sidebar I had going on was a bit overwhelming. It drew too much attention away from the main column. I speculated about somehow having it recede, and then tried a few different things. Darkening the area was problematic because it created new visual boundaries in the composition that made everything feel too complicated. But hiding the images helped (quite a bit!) and lightening the text in that column also worked.
Check it out, see what you think.
I may replace the “Projects & Other Work” area with a few short explanations of long-term projects like Torch, Nice Web Type likes, a link to the Typekit blog, and perhaps my author page at ALA. I also want to add a reference to my Twitter account somewhere in this sidebar.
But taking the sidebar in that slightly different direction (long-term stuff) means it’s not pointing out the latest big stuff I’ve been doing. So I thought maybe I’d draw prominent attention to some things just above the Notes & Bookmarks in the main column. I threw three example items up there now (features, I’m calling them) with basic ugly styling to differentiate them.
This is all reaching a point, or maybe it’s my impatience, where I’m craving inspiration beyond what I’ve already drawn from the type itself (and the modular scale I’m using). Especially for the small nav and now the features … it feels like these concentrated areas need some visual punch. Some realism or intricacy or color or something. But I have no leads. No reasons for realism or intricacy or color or any sort of visual punch. I’m trying to think of what made me decide on the colored stripe atop the site. I think it just came to me, and I liked it. Maybe something will just come to me, regarding the nav and features.
Maybe I’ll help that inspiration along.
