Check out all the other great entries at SXSW Cards.

P.S.  I’m honored to be in such company… UserVoice is awesome!  We’re using it on Multiplex and The Daily Jar.  Keep up the good work Marcus.

Randy Schmidt and Chris (of Ümlatte) and I will be there to present iSepta. I have a tiny case of stage fright, but I hope that I’ll be able to relax enough to enjoy seeing so many creative people blow my mind with their cool projects. I’m really looking forward to this.

Pre-Ignite Coworking

Also, if you’re planning to attend Ignite, you should come early to Northern Liberties and join Lauren Galantner and me for a Cream Cheese Session. This will be the second coworking session in our new bi-weekly schedule. We’ll be setting up camp just a couple blocks from Johnny Brendas at Euphoria Cafe. Should be a good time. Follow @creamcheese on Twitter for updates early in the week.

So this past weekend I took a little time to look around the interwebs and re-evaluate what I like about other designers’ sites. In the end, I realized that I just wanted something simple. Not too many colors, not too much content. Realistically, I’m not going to update the site every day, and I don’t want my homepage to become a clearinghouse for all my digital drivel (tweets, bookmarks, faves, pokes, etc, etc). So I threw out everything extra.

…and here you see the result. Overall, I like it. As I grow into it, I’m sure I’ll add some extra gewgaws and whatchamacallits. But for now, i’m keeping-it-stupid-simple. I’d love to get your feedback (in leaving everything out, I’m sure I left out something important). Thanks!

I had hoped to crank this thing out on Friday, but I’m a little to obsessive about my own code to turn something around that fast. It’s justified, since I’m using this site to develop WordPress plugins and techniques for use on other sites. Totally worth it, even though it means a few missed hours of sleep.

Anyway, here are some features of the new redesign. I’ll be posting more about these on Big Big Technical:

• Thumbnail Galleries and Post Images — I’m using my yet-unreleased Thumbail Gallery plugin to create the galleries on the Case Studies pages. For this redesign, I added a couple new features too, including support for images in multiple groups and a way to designate a “post image” that can be displayed with each posts’s excerpt on the front page and other archive pages.
• Categories as Pages — something I’ve been tossing around in my head for a while. I finally thought of a reasonably simple way to include categories in the default WordPress menu.

Longish break taken for dinner and TV.  Now back to work.

(wow, writing these posts really slows down this process)

I needed a simple, looks-nice-out-of-the-box template to use while I begin designing my own, so I went to the site I consider the go-to source for finding quality resources fast — Smashing Magazine. They’ve published a few great articles cataloging free WordPress Themes:

• 83 Beautiful WordPress Themes
• 21 Fresh, Usable and Elegant WordPress Themes
• 10 Fresh, Elegant and Clean WordPress Themes

I found a bunch that I liked, but I was most taken with:

• Simplicity Bright, by Karsten Kuhnen
• Upstart Blogger Modicus, by Robert Ellis

I ended up going with Modicus, because I liked it’s three full-column layout, which is the basic format I’m planning to use in my redesign.

In the midst of my theme search, I was distracted by a newer Smashing Magazine post called 45 More Excellent Blog Designs. That was really the inspiration I needed to get psyched up about working on my own site. These four designs are really beautiful, and have something atmospheric that I’m looking for on my own site:

• ISO50 – The Visual Work of Scott Hansen
• Evan Eckard Design
• Cameron I/O
• The Shaun

Only difference: all of these are dark background designs, and I’m leaning toward something a little more old-paper, weathered and natural feeling. The actual graphic work on ISO50 feels something like what I want. This’ll be a fun challenge… I’m going to have to keep reminding myself to KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID.

Core plugins have been activated and WordPress mostly configured. WordPress automatic update worked brilliantly. Took about 30 seconds, and caused no problems. It probably helps that I’m starting nearly from scratch. WP-Cache is still disabled since I’m going to be template hacking soon, and I don’t want caching messing with my head.

The Textile 2 plugin blanked my front page, so I’m considering using Text Control instead. For now, I’m just gonna write full HTML straight into posts :-/

I decided to use a /year/month/postname/ format for permalinks. I wanted to give some date context in the URL, but didn’t think including the day made sense. Also, this exactly mirrors the file structure of uploads when you allow WP to automatically organize them. That may come in handy some time.

Since this is a client-facing site, I elected to turn on comment moderation… again, not that I’m worried about being inundated with comments.

Next step, to install a bare-bones template, then start deciding what content to include.

Where does that link lead? To kitties and puppies, what else? Ahh, the calming influence of our fluffy friends. Thanks Wesabe, for a little bit of genius.

Writing Words Vs Writing Software is a great article from Signal Vs Noise about writing, re-writing, and re-re-writing. The article argues that editing, not inspiration, produces great writing, in any language—be it English, Finnish, or PHP. Here’s a great quote from early in the article:

“Books aren’t written – they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.”
-Michael Crichton

And I love this quote:

“The worst thing you write is better than the best thing you didn’t write.”

This article then reminded me of a podcast I heard recently on the Converstions Network where Robert Lefkowitz connects the development of written language and the development of computer languages in the context of open source software. Check it out: The Semasiology of Open Source Part 1, Part 2, Part 3