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Designer Freelance Redesign

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I would like to welcome you back to Designer Freelance after a whole month of no new content.

Why Redesign?

Quoting Hillman Curtis: “Design is a Functional art form. As such, it relies on a certain minimalism. Not that all design is minimal, of course; it’s just that everything counts”.

When I started Designer Freelance in 2010 it was kind of an experiment, a channel for sharing a little of what Design has given to me. But for some time I wasn’t very content with the design, it didn’t had the structure, or the functional form I desired.

I had very clear what I wanted for this redesign:

  • A featured gallery carrousel
  • Less Clutter, more white space
  • A minimal feeling, but very Functional.

Always Justify

I started design with the idea of MINIMAL on my mind, I mocked up 5 different comps for the home page, each one very different, but something was missing they weren’t really Designer Freelance, they were….. something else.

I was already designing for two weeks and getting nowhere. Then one day I show my designs to my wife (an old school designer too).

Her answer kind off pissed me off: What’s the purpose of all these, I mean if it is not broken why repair it?
What? I was really getting angry after 2 weeks of working in these comps.

And then I realized she was right….. I was forgetting a main principle for establishing a brand, I was changing a good brand after only a year when people was beginning to recognize it only because my Gemini part wanted to change the design, WHATS THE JUSTIFICATION?

So I started designing again, this time focusing on making more functional, and cleaner but maintaining the colors and logos of designer freelance.

The result a beautiful, functional and clean design that still remains as designer freelance.
When people see it they don’t really now what the changes are, they like it more.
So always justify as you work. Each element must have a reason of being there or being redisign and not only a compulsive desire.

A Smaller header

The first step was reducing the header height from 200 px to 146 px. This was done for creating a cleaner space, and for the carrousel. I also move the search from the sidebar to the header top.

 

Featured articles carrousel

I wanted to show certain articles in the main page and this was the perfect way of doing it. It also gives a more dynamic view of the front page.

White Background and gray boxes

For a cleaner and minimal look I used a white background. For the articles and elements in the sidebar I used a light gray color.

Gallery and social media

I moved up the gallery and give a different section for the social media links. Little icons and just text links.

For the improved gallery section I used a template without sidebar so it displays the complete artwork.

Popular post and recent articles Thumbnails

This is something I really like. With the Featured Image function now it is really simple to do it. Now you get a small preview of what the content is.

New Community news section.

I received so many mails for this section that I was going to remove it. Now I installed a new plug inn that is functioning perfectly and saves me a lot of time moderating the news.

Other Changes.

Now I’m using Total Cache and I’m pretty happy with it.
The footer now is really dynamic and I can change weekly the Quote and the book review.

Tell me what you think about it, if you like it and what other improvements you would like to see.


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