I get a wild hair across my backside from time to time in regards to my website and branding, thinking, “I should just burn it all to the ground and start again.” But then the prospect of doing all that work sets in. “Maybe just a controlled burn,” sounds a bit more comforting.
DaVinci is credited as saying, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” It cannot be more true for the artist’s brand itself. I have never finished a new logo, business card, letterhead, website and whatnot for myself and NOT thought, “I don’t like any of that.” I immediately want to start again.
And I typically do, just throwing the baby out with the bathwater and beginning again. Certain technologies made this an easy decision – once Flash was a huge draw to the web, with the (at times very limited) ability to do animation and movement effects for a site. I used Flash a lot in those days, from websites to interactive projects, and to some success. But updating a Flash site was a pain. Enter Dreamweaver!
Now you could design whatever you wanted with these software platforms – Dreamweaver, Frontpage, iWeb, etc. But the code was a mess, and since load times were important (pre-broadband), this was a sloppy way to create sites. I was not a programmer, so these were the only options. Enter WordPress!
CMS systems and the advent of high-speed internet (can’t we drop the “high-speed” moniker now?) changed the landscape again. Then there was social media and beyond. Now, a web presence is easier to have then it ever was. And yet, I find myself still lagging behind.
A website is a job, really, in and of itself. Putting out content, making sure portfolios and service pages are up-to-date and accurate, keeping fresh on social media – it is daunting, still. And yet, here we are, once again starting to rebrand the site and my whole online presence.
But this time, I think the bathwater is the thing to go. The baby is good. The baby is smart. She doesn’t need to go. But the blanket I’ve been wrapping her in for some time, maybe that could use an update. Enter … !