Website re-design

After a few months of experimentation and re-designs, I've finally come to a decision and have settled on this look and feel for my photography website. I've worked on this particular incarnation for a week now and have all but two pages finished. The prior incarnation that I had quietly put up a month ago has been plagued by broken links that according to my end shouldn't have been broken. It was most frustrating. I also decided that the black background was too oppressive and uninviting. I wanted it clean and light and modern like my other sites. 

I am no website designer. My knowledge of html is quite limited – just enough to be dangerous! And I haven't the budget to either a) hire a pro to design something for me or b) use one of the several modular site builders available out there for photographers and artists that are supposedly easy to use and somewhat customizable. Yes, some of them look spectacular. Clean. Modern. Flash transitions, etc. But they come with a hefty enough initial set-up and monthly hosting fews that took them pretty quickly out of the running for me during a very tight economic pinch. 

But I am a print designer and I have strong opinions about presentation. I've had a .mac account (now MoblieMe) with Apple for years and with iWeb, have designed various incarnations of my jewelry website, photo website and a few friends and family sites for several years. So, in these difficult times, why pay for more than is absolutely necessary, right? I'm already paying $99 a year for Apple's hosting and I have right now, 5 individual websites on that one account. Maybe, once some cash is flowing and freelance jobs start heading my way regularly, I might look into those flashy sites offered by FolioLinks or PhotoBiz. 

So for now, I'm balancing what I like with the money I can afford to pay and have decided that I'm quite pleased with the site(s) I can create using iWeb. It's such a great program. I choose a theme and instead of using one of their templates, I start with a blank page and manipulate it to what I like, save it as my base page and duplicate it to create each page of the site. So easy! A little tedious at times, but worth it. If you aren't afraid to experiment, I highly recommend it.

What on earth did I do before my Apple products?

Until the next post... Happy Easter.