*just kidding, Google
The trouble with redesigning my own site is that it really has been more a matter of rethinking than redesigning. So while I’ve been playing with presenting what I have to present, I’ve also been questing about for different ways of saying what I have to say.
For a month, I have had dummy links from my main site page to pages that weren’t there.
Bad. Very bad. Don’t try this at home. Readers try to click and nothing happens. If you are a regular person, this makes it look like your web designer is incompetent. If you are a web designer, cringe.
Finally, I had to acknowledge that I was really, seriously and stupidly, blocked about these pages I was working on and I couldn’t just let things sit as they were any longer.
So I tricked myself. I told myself I would put up a temporary page that had the bare bones of what those other pages were meant to have on them. Not a real page. Just a placeholder. It’s called “A Bunch of Pages That are Offline at the Moment.”
Yes, I know that’s weird. Whatever works, okay?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This is why I love you! Charming and brilliant workaround. You probably don’t want to hear this, but I’m really digging those “bare bones” pages. They seem quite chewy and flavorful, actually. And I LOVE the footer at the bottom of this page. You’re my hero.
Kelly, that was best possible comment at the best possible time. Thank you!
Agreed. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter WHAT the workaround is, just that you move past “stuck”. I think this is real world genius.
“Real-world genius.” I like the sound of that!
I love the idea of redesigning a blog – it is like a clean slate! I started my blog just a few months ago (Nov 2009) and I’d spent a few months thinking about design before I started. While I really, really, like my design, I’m already thinking about how I may want to change it. I’ve decided that I’ll get a redesign (and go from blogger to wordpress) as a 1-year bloggiversary present to myself… giving me 10 months to think about it!
Thanks for joining the conversation, Erin. I like your blog — I like the whimsy. The Clapper article that’s up now gave me a chuckle. Such a good topic, how silly things genuinely add to our experience.