Paul Randall » websites

The Constant Redesigner

Paul — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:42:50 +0000

This site has, it seems always remained in a state of flux. In it’s current ‘version 3′ guise I have never been 100% happy with it.

The many redesigns are usually due to me getting bored with the site. My skills and design knowledge have improved and a personal brand redesign along the way have changed the look also.

Part of the problem comes with a lack of purpose for the site. Although a designer I don’t have much of a portfolio on the website – mainly because I am currently in full-time employment and do not show any work I do during office hours. The site also isn’t a promotional tool either so it only exists to be a place to blog and host experiments.

So I again rethink the purpose of the site, and after recent analysis reports being constructed by @RobHawkes I have been rethinking what I want to do with the site:

Publish experiments
Indepth research
Front-end focused
Collate social profile (last.fm, twitter, dribbble, delicious)
Frequent blogging

This will no doubt come with a new website design, and i’m also thinking about moving from Wordpress to a custom CMS. Along with all the hacking i’ve heard about recently to Wordpress blogs I have always had a keen interest in optimisation and speed.

Watch this space.

HigherSites Launch New Site

Paul — Fri, 28 May 2010 20:32:50 +0000

This is just a quick post to promote the new HigherSites website.

http://www.highersites.co.uk

We’re a web design company in Somerset, and although I have only recently joined the team in April, I have thoroughly enjoyed it so far – working on some great sites with an awesome team!

Site Refresh

Paul — Sun, 16 May 2010 12:02:29 +0000

So, things look a little different here!

After a long period of inactivity, due to a new job, and other things the site has sat a little dorment. I thought it was time for a change, and after many, many revisions I decided to finally design something. So, after a few hours of work this weekend – here it is.

I’m hoping to tidy a few things up over the next week, and I will follow that up with a more indepth blog on the designs that didn’t make it.

If you do notice something weird, feel free to post a comment. It hasn’t been browser tested, but bear in mind that things may look a little funky for the next few days.

Dribbble Invite Giveaway

Paul — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:29:41 +0000

Thanks to all submissions, but the two winners have now been chosen (See comments)

I have some very exclusive Dribbble invites – 2 to be exact.

If you haven’t heard of it before, Dribbble is a site which allows you to upload 400×300px previews of your design work. I have been hugely impressed with it so far, and invites are very elusive.

If you would like the opportunity of winning a Dribbble invite, please leave a comment (with an email address and website/twitter account) below, and later on I will choose the lucky two and contact them directly.

URL ABC

Paul — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:04:45 +0000

A better-late-than-never post on a game played by Tim Van Damme, Elliot Jay Stocks and Sam Brown (i’m sure there are plenty more people playing the game!).

Simply go to your browser, type in the letters A-Z and blog the results. So here are mine:

But rather than just knock them up in a UL like some, and being that kind of person I had to make an ordered list and use capitalised letters. The CSS to do that is:

.alphabet-list{list-style:upper-alpha}

So play along and leave your results as a comment!

The One Song Sketch

Paul — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:41:22 +0000

One song, one piece of paper. Just doodle.

The point of this exercise was to see what kind of things I created when listening to different types of music; trying not to think about anything too much – just to have a doodle to see if what you listen to affects your creativity.

I just sat down and had a list of shuffle songs playing straight after the other. Occasionally lyrics made me draw certain objects, but usually I started on one main drawing and added parts to it as the song went on.

I tend to listen to anything when designing, but have always thought that what you listen to can change the look or style. I guess because of the tempo, or genre.

My somewhat dubious muscial taste really does cover a wide spectrum. Just have a look at my profile to see what I mean: http://www.last.fm/user/paulrandall so should I choose what I listen to when designing based on the client?

My Doodles

Song: G-Unit – Lay You Down

Song: Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Make You Feel Better

Song: Green Day – Are We The Waiting

Song: Jamiroquai – Starchild

Song: The Jam – Town Called Malice

I’d love to see what kind of things you come up with, based on the type of music you are listening to at the time. I have setup a Flickr group for these type drawings, or you can post a comment linking to a TwitPic or similar photo or scan.

They really don’t have to be masterpieces. Jason Santa Maria’s post, entitled pretty sketchy summed this up to me.

So, will I make a more conscious choice of what to listen to when designing? To be honest, I think your mood affects your style much more. If you are relaxed, tense, tired or stressed that will affect you more than listening to Hip-Hop, Dance or Pop but it was interesting to see what got drawn anyway.

FootyTweets Receives Cease & Desist

Paul — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:46:42 +0000

As you may know, I designed the FootyTweets website with Ollie Parsley, and he recently received a Cease & Desist letter.

The site has around 17,000 subscribers, and sends thousands of visitors to the football teams official sites every day.

I would really appreciate it if you could leave a comment, digg, blog or tweet about this unfortunate sitatuation