Drum roll please...

And so the revamp of my portfolio web site, http://www.mickstatham.com/, is finally finished. After what seems like an absolute age, all the pages, links, images and waffling have come together to complete a shiny new, minimal, gridy site.

I'm not an HTML coder or a professional web site designer, that's why I use Dreamweaver, a great program once owned by Macromedia but now part of the Adobe family. That said, I'd like to think that I know my way around when it comes to being able to tweak Dreamweavers code when necessary. For instance, as the art page contains rollovers which don't operate on mobile devices, I slipped in an extra line of code to allow mobile devices using iOS, Android etc. to go to a different page that doesn't use the rollover effect. I've also had the Devils own job getting the site to behave in IE8, Safari and Google Chrome. IE8 seems to interpret HTML in peculiar ways but, in the end, I managed to tame it (unless you know different).

Above all I wanted this version of the site (which I believe is now version 5.0) to be simple. This time around it's just about the art and on this version, the photography. Everything is designed around a grid layout which makes it look crisp and hopefully will give the site a longevity so that any redesign will not now be needed for some considerable time.

Update on the update

So close now to putting the final finishing touches to my portfolio revamp. As well as my art work I have decided to use this opportunity to showcase some of my photography.

I really don't know if I'm any good when it comes to taking photographs. I just know what I like. Following on from my Lunchtime Lens project I found an instant gratification in taking 'snaps', something which I've not felt, creatively, for some time.

Oh, and I'm considering cobbling together some kind of print on demand photo book, you know, just in case...

Logo love

I'm not a logo designer. No where close to being one. Perhaps that's why, when I decided to update my portfolio site (which still isn't finished) I spent so much time agonising about the 'brand'. In my opinion (and this is through an untrained eye) a successful logo design should convey the spirit of the product without having to spell out what that product is. I wanted it to say 'Printmaker' with out it saying 'look at me I'm a printmaker'. Does that make sense? No? O.K. well here it is, you decide.

The new me

For a couple of weeks I've been busily re-working my portfolio site. It's current incarnation is clunky and has a very 'I've got a copy of Dreamweaver and I'm going to use it' look about it. Time for a change. Time for a crisp, minimal, grid based design.

Here's a sneak peek. Coming soon to a computer near you.

Matt Pyke, genius

I want to be this guy when I grow up.

D&AD Presidents Lecture / Matt Pyke from Universal Everything on Vimeo.

This was from an address to design students at the Art and Design Academy at the Liverpool John Moore's University last August. I discovered this on the D&AD (Design and Art Direction)  blog.

Matt Pyke is Universal Everything.

If only I were twenty five years younger. Does anyone have a Delorian?

Out with the old

Those of you that visit here from time to time will notice that a bit of tiding up has been going on.

The blog was getting a little cluttered looking. Over time I've changed the blog mast head...

But these were always too 'busy'. So now my motto os 'keep it simple'. Some times less really is more, eh?

I'm also going to be adding a couple more pages to the blog. The first is an easy place to shop for some new T's that I'm developing. There might be other pages too. Just got to figure out what to put on them.