Over the past several years that I’ve been writing on webclique, the site has undergone two formal versions, each of which contained several iterations before a formal redesign. With version 1, I actually released a v1.25, v1.50 and a v1.75 before coming to a proper 2.0 launch. This time around, I’ve apparently opted for letters on each of my releases. It may seems strange to do iterative releases on a website, but my main impetus for handling design changes in this manner are two-fold.
The first is that while I do love the process of designing a new site from the ground up, I rarely release a site that, when it’s launched, utilizes everything I want to do over the life of the design. As a result, my site becomes a work in progress.
Version 2a was the first iteration of webclique.net
I try to hit all the important things in my launch (initial look/feel, links, about me, etc.) and then over the coming days/months I add other elements/functions and fine tune as time rolls on. Each new major set of revisions ends up changing the current release number of the site. In this way, my personal sites end up operating more like a software company than a traditional design and release site. This process of natural site evolution ends up feeling more comfortable to me than having everything done up front and remaining visually static for the life of the site. This leads directly to the second reason I work in this manner.
There are so many good designer-based sites out there these days, but a lot of the time they feel so static to me because they go up, they stay for five or six years without any major (design) revisions, and then they are replaced with something new. The content, of course, changes constantly because of the nature of these sites primarily being weblogs and platforms for speech. Yet, the visuals of the site, the presentation layer and the inner workings don’t generally change (or evolve) much throughout the course of the version’s lifetime.
In this way most sites go the course of more traditional print materials and collateral. You design, you publish and that shiny new design becomes a static (and sometimes visually stagnant) piece of collateral branding that gets updated every few years with a shiny new piece of collateral branding that then becomes static (and sometimes visually stagnant) piece of blah blah blah… (insert universal image for cycle repeating itself here.)
I think that what people forget sometimes is that we have been given a dynamic, immediate medium. So, why are we utilizing it like it was printed collateral? Why don’t sites evolve and change daily, weekly, monthly? They should. I’m getting off the point, so let me refocus.
I mainly re-organize, refresh and re-arrange little visual portions of my site from time-to-time to reset my visitor’s visual palettes (as well as my own.) The general structure of the site does not change extensively, because frankly I like to get my mileage out of a site structure, but swapping out or souping up the visuals and portions of the layout through an intermediate release can help to ward off the feeling of stagnation. Again, I’m not against a site design staying in place for five or six years, but a change up every now and again can make the site feel fresh and visually re-engage visitors in my opinion.
Of course this doesn’t really translate to client sites as these are built to be either static or dynamic designs based on the initial brief. I’m mainly speaking about our professional sites as designers. There are some individuals that are already taking this step by making their sites a living portfolio, while others are encouraging that change, but periodic visual change is still the exception rather than the norm. The “hold it all in until the re-design” mentality seems to be the way of things.
Design experimentation can create critical mass, and our sites can be the catalyst to that if we let them.
