When I got my own domain a year ago, I whipped up a simple theme, “Version 1.0″, in a single weekend. By the end of the summer, I was tired of it, and decided to get a new look, “Version 2.0 beta”. Well, life happened, and Version 2.0 beta stayed on the site until yesterday without getting finished. Last fall, I decided to do a complete redesign. I spent many hours on the project, but never got it close enough to done to actually post it.
My life got busy and so the design work got delayed. During that time, I reevaluated my design and goals and decided to scrap that design and start from scratch. I did almost all of the initial design work on a Greyhound bus during a four hour round trip to Dallas this spring. To reflect my interest in photography and (hopefully) ease the transition towards making money as a freelance photographer, I shifted the website from a strictly blog to a full-featured website.
I had to shelve the design project for several really busy weeks, but decided to pull it out and finish it this weekend. I started early this morning, and for about eighteen hours straight I’ve sat in my armchair with my laptop tweaking code and getting everything working. At this point, “Version 3.0″ (I nicknamed it “Tabs”) is officially done. All the CSS styling is there (for the first time in a year!), everything should work just fine (if someone has a modern browser; I’ve tested in Firefox 3, Opera 9 and Internet Explorer 7).
The new site comes with a lot of new features. Check out the new:
- Ministry page: A central page for me to post my writings and talks regarding spiritual life and ministry issues.
- Photo Gallery: A full-featured, powerful photo gallery. Run by Gallery2 under the hood.
- About page: A new biography and questions.
- New Contact options: You can call my phone or chat to me right on the page.
Looking to the future, I have a few small tweaks I expect to make to this design, and then I’ve already got some ideas for a completely new look (“Version 4.0″) that I might be able to publish next fall.