We as designers are a fickle bunch when it comes to designing for ourselves. We second guess ourselves. We obsess. We lose sleep over it.

About 5 minutes after the previous version of this site launched, I started working on the version you see now. Seriously, just 300 seconds in and I was already unsatisfied with the layout, typography, user interface and the lack of social media interaction.

Sure, it had a few good points—scarce as they were; Josh Durham created a nifty interactive portfolio for it, but that’s about all I liked about it.

But aesthetics weren’t the only thing bugging me about the old site. I also felt like it lacked a clear focus. What was the priority? Are we providing a service? Are we merely showcasing our work or are we just another blog site?

Truth be told, we’re all of those things to varying degrees, but we’re designers first and foremost. Designers marketing a service.

So, this was more than just a redesign this was also a realignment. A realignment of goals and of marketing strategy.

Designing to Realign

The homepage is probably the most important page of a site when trying to sell something. In our case, we’re selling ourselves—so, we tried to make who we are and what we are about as clear as possible.

The first thing you see when you come to the site is the logo, the short paragraph that explains that we are graphic designers and the call to action buttons that direct you to our work, the about us page and the contact page. Positioned along side these elements are work samples that fade in and out using Jquery and link to their respective projects.

So, essentially, everything you need to do business with us is right on top. No digging required.

Our most popular blog posts are featured on the homepage—and are given their own special emphasis, while still serving as a secondary function of the site.

We went big with the footer and added links to all the sites on the web that we love and links to all the social sites where you can find Parks Design.

I also happen to love Flickr and I wanted a way to display my frequent forays into photography. So, I’ve added a Flickr badge. I have Cindy Li to thank for that as I was inspired by the way she uses Flickr on her site.

Now for a few design specifics…

White Space is your BFF

Something that really bugged me about the old site was the small size of the content area. Everything felt so confined and claustrophobic.

The new design has much wider margins which makes for an easier read—especially on the blog posts. The overall size of the pages is about 200 pixels larger than the old site as well.

So, time to do away with your 640 x 480 CRT, Grandma.

Scheming with Color

I have completely revamped the color scheme and even tweaked my logo to match. I went with a warmer blue than before because the old blue would, at times, look purple—and I got tired of Josh ragging on me for that.

The New Color Scheme

However, I needed an accent color as well. I didn’t want the site to be nearly monochromatic. So, I selected a red-orange for the links  and menu bar rollovers.

I Heart Typography

Interstate is my typeface of choice for headlines and subheads—even my logotype uses a customized version of Interstate.

I think I like Interstate because of its unique ascenders and descenders. It just has an unusual look compared to most san-serif typefaces—and that appeals to me.

I agonized over for it a while when trying to decide what to use for the body copy. I went back and forth between Helvetica-Neue and Georgia before finally settling—with a little help from my associates on Twitter—on Georgia.

The Nerdy Development Stuff

I’m using WordPress for the CMS. It powers the whole site—pages, blog, portfolio—all of it. I built in a lot of php functionality this time, so I’m relying on very few plugins this time—maybe 3 total.

As always, I’ve made web standards a priority. Nearly every page on this site validates. There might be a few little things in the CSS that don’t validate, but to me these are minor quibbles. What can I say? I like to use rounded corners on some elements. Sue me.

Why So Serious?

Since I was doing a total redesign, I figured why not have some fun with it? There are a few hidden goodies all over this site. Some of the portfolio projects may be clickable and lead to interesting, funny or maybe embarrassing stuff.

Hint: Try to generate an error 404 page.

Where do we go from here?

I’m fascinated by what Jason Santa Maria does with his blog posts. Periodically, he’ll art direct certain posts differently than the default layout his CMS spits out.

I love this idea. Magazines don’t have the same layout for every article. So, why should blog articles?

We’ve decided to try this approach on some of our future articles. So keep an eye out. It could get interesting.