Why does this button need to be red, not green? Why should we move this ad below the page content instead of above it? Why do you want us to use a simple input field when we have this dope slider here that is so much cooler?
You may have noticed that some things have changed around here. I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Why redesign a portfolio when it already looks good and gets leads?"
It has been one year and 169 days since I launched Joshwork 2.0. Back then, my goals in relaunching my site were simple; I had learned alot as a designer and a developer, and I wanted to up the sophistication level of my portfolio to reflect that.
Now, just a little under two years later, I'm starting over from scratch.
Since I relaunched my website, I've done and learned so much. I've grown as a developer, I've been promoted to the role of Art Director, and in general, I'm a more responsible human being. The more I look at that old site, with all the dark colors and fancy RGB effects, the more I have come to realize that while this may represent my abilities as a designer, it does not in any way reflect who I am as a person.
While it may do a good job of making me seem cool and sophisticated, the truth of the matter is that while I am capable of being those things, I prefer to be more casual, inclusive, and as much of a sappy dork as humanly possible. I proudly sport my "Made with dad jokes" Webflow sticker on my Mac at all times, and my most prized trophy is not the shiny crystal one I got from Clone Comp 2020, but rather a wizard hat my IHG fam got me with the words "Webflow Wizard" taped on it for general Webflow awesomeness. So, with this in mind, I wanted to rethink the approach of my portfolio with the following new criteria:
According to the Google Search console, more users navigated to my art page over any other page, including any project page or even the contact form. People want to know what makes me uniquely me, and so this redesign should surface this content sooner, in a more digestible way. In addition, I wanted to highlight the quality of my projects over their quantity; I'd like to reduce to less than 10, and preferrably onlt projects completed within the last 4-5 years.
My old site looked cool, but it was a bit of an accessibility nightmare, and that's not ok. My new site would need to be AAA accessible, featuring less trendy animations and more readable, enjoyable content. Pictures of cats must abound.
Many portfolios have so much in common; it's all process, structure, and design crap. That's all well and good, but tacking a Memoji onto an about page doesn't tell me who you are. My old site suffered from a lack of me; this new site would need to sell not only the fact that I are can design good, but also that I have passions, and that I'm not only capable of failure, but that I excel at it. You know, human type stuff.
This goes hand and hand with the personality bit, but if you were to meet me in person and then were asked to assign me colors based on my personality, I assure you that nobody would pick black, white, or grey-black-green. My new site would need to flip minimalism the bird by oozing wonderful color out of every pixel and pore.
Think about that for a second. It can be argued that Google, Amazon, and even Apple all suffer from their own unique flaws. But these sites, leaders in their fields and case studies in user experience excellence, all have one thing in common: they're always improving.
Though I've already published the updates for this website, my work is far from done. I'm constantly re-writing copy, re-thinking visuals, and optimizing images and visuals for better performance. This idea of seeking improvement transcends design, and I try to apply it to everything I do.
I am never perfect.
But I am always improving.
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