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Home Forums Other You are your hardest client! Thoughts?

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  • #45295
    JohnMotylJr
    Participant

    Hey folks, so lately i have been chatting with some of you fine css-tricks community folks and noticed that i share a common trait. Whenever i design for myself i either A.) Get done and design it isnt’t good enough or B.) Am always changing UI,UX.

    Maybe there is a reason why i have changed my personal website about 10 times in a year ( and it isn’t even live YET )..

    I know its not piss poor planning, because i design it out then code it up.

    So i would like to hear if yall are the same way or at least how do you fight the urge to constantly change things or try and make improvements mid-development. I would like @chriscoyier ‘s thoughts because mainly, you have had a really good site, design is always super awesome, and you generally change it every once in a while.

    And maybe if you guys aren’t this anal, do you change anything in your production process since it is for yourself or do you just keep trucking like any other client. I want to get some pointers because i finally have the time and motivation to not only design out a personal site again, but finally tackle it as a wordpress site. So get ready @chrisburton, my yoda of wordpress!

    #137662
    chrisburton
    Participant

    Ha. I’m not a Star Wars fan and I don’t think I’ve ever watched it so I’m not understanding that reference. Plus, I really dislike WordPress in general, especially for portfolio’s. There’s no need for a CMS that large for something so little. I’ve grown to like Kirby very much. I know others prefer Jekyl or whatever it’s called.

    It’s taken me almost 3 years as I told you recently. This time I think I’m satisfied because I took a different approach.

    Create all of your content first without any functionality or design. This is crucial and made it so much easier in the end.

    #137663
    JohnMotylJr
    Participant

    I agree, having a plan and what to insert (“content”) is important. I decided i will use wordpress because i want to use it for more of a blog where i can included projects as well.

    I will totally check out kirby and the other one, whatever works best is the best option :)

    And you are not a Star Wars fan? Hey, to each there own but cummon, you should totally watch the original three, just sayin lol..

    #137664
    chrisburton
    Participant

    I am a huge Harrison Ford junkie but that’s where it crosses the line.

    I’m using Kirby mainly for my blog but ill be showing some selected work of mine on my about page. Custom Fields are ridiculously simple to output with Kirby.

    It’s basically something like this.

    field-name ?>

    No extra plugins or anything. I love it.

    #137672
    JohnMotylJr
    Participant

    @cwork, i would completely agree with you on that. Hell, whenever i go into jquery/js repo I look at all the useful code i wrote, but than start to try and optimize it because little things like, i could have used a ternary instead of if, shorthand stuff.

    #137673
    chrisburton
    Participant

    Damn, guys. All this interest about my site from people here, Twitter and others from the type community. No pressure, right?

    Thank you, @cwork

    I believe it comes down to this: We’re our own worst critics. But I honestly think once you have the content in place, everything becomes much easier to figure out.

    #137677
    JohnMotylJr
    Participant

    Hey, we want screen shots to prove it exists lol.. No pressure lol

    #137679
    chrisburton
    Participant

    Still working on some ideas. Screenshot

    #137680
    JohnMotylJr
    Participant

    HAHA.. proof!! Love it…

    #137697
    CrocoDillon
    Participant

    I’ve been thinking the same thing a lot, lately. It’s a pain! Nuff said.

    #137756
    TheDoc
    Member

    @JohnMotylJr I find working on a personal site to be a major pain in the ass. I’m never happy with anything. I’m working on a new one right now and I’m a couple hours in and not completely sick of it yet, so that must be a good sign!

    #137768
    PixelClaw
    Member

    > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. &hellp; It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. – Ira Glass

    #137780
    Alen
    Participant

    Great quote. Although, it doesn’t really apply to this discussion. Iterating over your design is not necessarily lack of skill, it’s lack of boundaries. The reason one changes design/approach all the time is because one needs to set restrictions and clearly outline what the purpose is. You can easily deviate from your design because there’s no timeline, manager, and boss to answer to. You are the one wearing all these different hats. So it’s easy to make the decision.

    #137797
    pathouse
    Member

    @JohnMotylJr – I’ve built and torn down something like 5 personal blogs in the past year alone. So allow me to add my voice to everyone else here – you are certainly not alone.

    However, I think at a certain point the only way to move forward is to stop destroying everything and starting from scratch. Learn to be comfortable with being unsatisfied and take incremental steps toward improvement.

    As far as the CMS discussion goes, I recently abandoned WordPress in favor of [Jekyll](http://jekyllrb.com/ “Jekyll”). From what I’ve read of Kirby the two are very similar but Jekyll is free, open source, and integrated with GitHub pages. As a programmer, I actually started using Jekyll to learn git, but I can understand if you design guys aren’t interested in that. I’d also check out [Octopress](http://octopress.org/ “Octopress”) if you’re interested in Jekyll.

    #137798
    chrisburton
    Participant

    > From what I’ve read of Kirby the two are very similar but Jekyll is free, open source, and integrated with GitHub pages.

    Kirby is open-source and I prefer to pay people for doing good work when I use their product. Although, I understand why others feel different about this.

    I do like the Github hosting they have for Jekyll. However, I don’t find using the command prompt all that simple to work with so I decided not to use it. Plus, I prefer the Panel that Kirby offers.

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