What a year 2020 was. For everyone. After such a year, I decided it was time for a fresh start for my website. Not only a new design and layout, but a new domain, too.
A new look
Starting with a new look, I wanted to go with something that reflected me, and my future direction. Firstly, it needed to represent me personally. So I chose a colour palette full of greens to match my love of the natural world and the outdoors. With some subtle pops of colour, I have included a visual key that lifts the dark design whilst keeping it simple.
Secondly, I chose to go with a predominantly dark colour scheme. This, is to follow with my sustainable development practices. With the invention of oLED screens, the old rules of using dark colours on screens is back. oLEDs light each pixel individually, meaning the darker the screen, the less energy is used to power it. Hence my dark design, with muted light colours.
A different way of building
I decided that I wanted to slim down how I build for WordPress. So, I thought my own website was a great place to give that a go.
My website is built with the Tachyons CSS framework. This allows me to build right in the HTML structure, and develop layouts with minimal code and even less styling. With nearly everything you need to create a custom look and feel, as well as layout, Tachyons is a slim framework to work with. It creates both ease of build and challenge in design thinking.
Lazy load everything
The other aspect of my website is that all the images are lazy loaded. Using the new lazy load methods built into browsers, my sites load times are shorter, and file sizes are smaller. It means less data is wasted if someone doesn’t scroll over each image, as each image only loads if scrolled to or within the browser viewport on initial load. A win win for sustainability – without loosing the experience of images.
So, that’s it. A new website. I hope you like it. Why not check out some other areas of my site. Have a look at my work, find out a bit more about me, or see the services I offer for web design and development.
All the best for 2021, Nick.