Natalie Hanson Introducing Froggy!
In the past few months, it has become increasingly clear that my website and blog were woefully outdated, and that it was time for a refresh. I have been reticent to post until the site was up and fully navigable, but I think it’s close enough now that I can get back to producing content. So, welcome to my new integrated website and blog! I’ve permanently pulled down my old website, and all the traffic from my former blog on WordPress is being redirected here.
I started a mommy blog in 2006, but once I had kids, it became difficult to blend my tweets and posts about poopy diapers with my life in the business world. So in 2008 I split the family blog into another domain. I was posting the equivalent of once every three days on the mommy blog, but the professional blog continues to suffer some neglect by comparison …
However, in my new job I am focused full time on building and running a User Experience team, and it’s impossible to not get attuned to current trends in web design! When I first started blogging in 2006, people had a website and a separate blog. There were two sites to maintain, and the integration was never great with the tools I had at my disposal. Today, WordPress has such robust content management capabilities that it’s possible to have both together on one platform, as I’ve done here.
Perhaps even more importantly, the look-and-feel today is much more open and airy (perhaps in part inspired by the visual space and tactile affordance that tablets require). And of course, screen resolutions are higher quality so the standard width of pages is significantly larger now. There are a bunch of other things I could point out, but those are the glaring ones that should make sense to most everyone. Here are screenshots of my former sites:
The transition was forced by the fact that Apple appears to have lost interest in continuing development of their iWeb solution, so I had no good way to maintain my website. As I was evaluating how to proceed, I came across the Elegant Themes website, which offered a bunch of beautiful and contemporary designs that I could implement in WordPress. I selected the Chameleon theme as the foundation for the redesign, and before I knew it, I was up to my eyeballs in designing and rebuilding my website and blog at the same time! For those of you that know me, that will probably not come as a surprise. 🙂
The site you’re viewing now remains pretty true to that original template, but I made some small navigational improvements throughout, so Chameleon had a child named Froggy – which is why I am introducing Froggy today. (In case you’re wondering, the cute little frog appearing in my header is from a company called Stuck On You that provides kids labels for daycare and school. The little frog is from their Classic Labels line, and it’s the image I chose for my own labels. Juvenile, I know. But cute, right?!)
To celebrate the launch of this Chameleon-based site, I thought I would share some pictures that I came across online. Igor Siwanowicz is a photographer that does a lot of work with insects and reptiles – I think his work is amazing! The close up of the tail (above) has such extraordinary light and texture – it looks like beads to me (read the About page to learn more about my obsession with beads and beading). And looking at these other two pictures gave me a whole new appreciation for what chameleons actually do.
I look forward to sharing continued improvements of this site with you, and to being inspired by a beautiful new look-and-feel to write more about what I’m working on and reading about these days. In the meantime, I hope you’ll enjoy exploring the site as a work-in-progress. The Photography area displays images from two of my three trips to Asia – China (1991) and Bali (1993). I hope to post the pictures from Japan (2010) in the next few weeks.
Please come back soon to see how the site is continuing to take shape!
Natalie Hanson 