AUER

Over the course of the past few months, I’ve worked to do the one thing many designers don’t focus on: myself. Design portfolios often become subject to rushed, half-thought products in the event of one growing tired of their previous site. New sites are often done within days; some done overnight. As I’ve succumbed to this many times, I felt it was time to treat myself with the same respect I treat client work.

A page of thumbnails created in the process of designing the new site.

Most notably, I worked to keep as close to the yellow brick road as I could with the new site. I followed the strict design process I do with all other serious projects and scrapped many, many ideas along the way. Moreover, the site includes the final product of my own branding. Instead of hashing together a logo, quickly matching type with it and calling it a day, I decided to fit myself with an appropriate identity. For years I’ve felt the need to attach a color to my identity; first, using a lively yellow-green and eventually moving to a bright blue. Ultimately, I scrapped the notion of needing a color to express myself as a designer and now rely on the greyscale. I would hope Vignelli would be somewhat proud.

Rough comp of the Folio page where large images were implemented.

The initial ideas came from a self evaluation, a priceless tool most designers should liberally use and abuse. I sat down with my current site, as well as past portfolios, and critiqued it. I pointed out the successful elements as well as the unsuccessful while working my hardest to detach myself from personal interest. This led to a great foundation of requirements on myself to improve the website over redoing it. Afterwards, I moved forward with a series of thumbnail-to-rough progressions. Some included large amounts of info-graphics. Others complimented the layout with large, expansive images of my work.

What became the final result my portfolio site, as with most of my work, was something both elegant and functional. I kept animations and visual elements as consistent as possible without making the layouts too stale. I made sure that the focus was the work instead of a pretty, ephemeral style surrounding it all. I, for one, am finally happy with it. It’s not a lustful happiness, but rather a glee of quiet content.

Here’s some key points about the journey that’s finally ended:

• The current design produced 67 thumbnail images of just page layouts
• There are 32 pages of notes
• I began analyzing the project in November 2009
• I began the final concept of the site in April 2010
• There were 3 considered full designs for the site
• The project brought in extensive research in SVG images, though they aren’t used in the design
• The grid used contains three columns, containing 5 units each, with thick gutters
• Most of the design, and writing, were done avoiding the cat sleeping in between myself and the keyboard and mouse

I hope you enjoy the site as much as I do. It feels very gratifying to finally have a place to call home for my work.