This is my first article ever! I feel like I’ve just finished a really slow marathon. I’m finally done with my blog-folio site. This project has been going off and on for about six months. It began as a simple portfolio site that I could use when applying for jobs. As I was finishing that site, I realized that a simple portfolio didn’t really do what I wanted it to do. I want people to feel like they know me beyond my artwork. To do that I felt like I should share what’s going on in my mind. Plus, I have lots of ideas and opinions about art and technology. I always wanted to share them with people. At the same time, I’m just about to graduate college, and I’d like to share my experience getting out into the real world with other designers.

This project began with a name, and this is really what made it take so long to complete. I spent a long time trying to come up with the perfect “Web 2.0” name. I came up with “Wirevein”. It seemed to work. Wire relates to being “wired in”, plugged into technology. When I put it together with “Vein” it seemed to translate to “technology runs through my veins” (for me anyways). I used this name as a starting point for my first template.

I wanted the design to sort of fit in with all the other tech blogs out there. The image at the beginning would change every time you visit the site like Flickr. The graphics themselves were inspired by sites like Digg. Very minimal and organized. I wanted the color scheme to be punched up, so I chose muted beige colors with red and light blue highlights. I was pretty happy with this site template until I took the time to really analyze it.

I want people to feel like they know me beyond my artwork. To do that I felt like I should share what’s going on in my mind.

It was nice and clean, but it really did not represent me. I could see Wirevein as a site similar to Engadget or Gizmodo, but not a new designer. I had to stop and think about exactly what I was trying to do. I decided that the name itself was holding me back. It was back to making huge lists of names. This time I focused on words and phrases that related to me. I came up with “Virtual Deviance”. I felt like this had a lot to do with me. I’m not exactly think like other designers, and the site itself was on a virtual landscape.”

I was about 90% done with this template when I stopped. It’s funny how words can seem to drive the rest of your design sometimes. All of my Virtual Deviance templates were dark and somewhat aggressive. Again, this wasn’t really me. I was closer than I was with “Wirevein”, but was far from where I wanted to be. This is when I realized that if I want people to feel like they are talking to me directly, I couldn’t hide behind some made up name.

So I took the project idea literally and started with a portrait of myself. It’s illustrated because it demonstrates some of my abilities and also seems to blend in with the site nicely. I thought it would be interesting to hide the lower part of my face behind a the main content because the content is my voice. After that, the site seemed to evolve on its own. I focused on what exactly I would look like if I was a website.

The next task was coding. This was a task in and of itself. As I worked on this project, I was also in the process of learning PHP. I was planning on coding everything from scratch, but I quickly discovered there are many smarter options out there than doing everything yourself. I created simple PHP templates, but found there to be lots of opportunity for huge headaches as I progressed through the development, and started looking around for other options.

I ended up going with Wordpress because of the really light, open source architecture. I developed my site on a my local host. I have to say, Wordpress is a joy to work with. Everything is straightforward and infinitely customizable. There were are few hiccups moving my project to a live host, but overall things went without a hitch. I got exactly the results I was looking for.

So, here I am. My site is complete, but it’s pretty much empty. I’m planning on writing a range of articles about things I’m into. I’m an Apple fan boy, so expect lots of articles about upcoming Apple hardware. I’m also a gamer, and gadget lover. Most importantly, I’m a designer. Along with site recommendations, I will post a series of tutorials from all of the different programs I use, from Photoshop to Maya.