Spring Refresh

Spring means several things to me: Easter, the conclusion of the football league, and the annual tradition of refreshing my personal website design. This year is more pertinent than usual being one year since I started freelancing.

dbushell.com home page design comparison (2013–2014)

I’ve ditched my logo. It was large and a little out-dated. I work independently, my name and face are my brand alongside my design aesthetic, so why do I need a logo too?

My origami crane is another signature image. One that’s more attractive, versatile, and a piece of my design portfolio I’m especially fond of. Allowing this to become the primary visual focus has given my home page a new beautiful simplicity.

Practically speaking the logo was unwieldy to design around. If an unimaginative person were to write “The Laws of Web Design” one might state “the logo must appear in the top-left corner”. Such boring convention encourages an equally unimaginative masthead to follow suit. By freeing myself of these constraints I became open to much more experimental ideas.

Readable Content

I adapted the fixed header concept I first developed for my Tales WordPress theme. It provides instant access to navigation and a subtle reminder of who I am. Importantly, it doesn’t dominate the top of every page. On larger viewports the website footer becomes a fixed sidebar off to the right. This brings my profile and recent content into view while allowing the current page to lead.

Whilst tidying my web server the other day I noticed that my original portfolio from 2008 is still online. Look at how tiny that text is! My eyesight has no doubt deteriorated since, but my respect and understanding for web accessibility has increased at a far greater pace. With each iteration of my website I’ve strived to improve typography and reduce content density. I reckon this is my best iteration yet.

Coming Soon…

I’m still waiting for a few websites to launch before I update my design portfolio with more recent responsive case studies. I’m hoping for a big summer update.

I’m also writing a front-end dev review to cover technical aspects of my new website. Expect that sooner!

Buy me a coffee! Support me on Ko-fi