21 July 2009

Dressed In Value has a new homepage.

This new design does 2 important things.

First, it introduces a new identity-illustration that our friend Tyler Deeb made especially for Dressed In Value. He was commissioned for it, and sent a handful of design ideas before coming to this image. This was my response to him exactly:

Aha! This is by far my favorite. A worried lion. What irony! The lion is the boldest, most courageous, and fearless creature. Yet here is one who appears to be afraid. You see, this parallels something I have long written about myself:

I want to see, experience, and know our world; hear life stories of wise, zealous, and humble people; be part of something larger than myself, learn more than I already know, read books that I haven’t read, and hear music I haven’t heard. I cherish change, love adventure, and I’m scared to death of most of it.

Tyler did great work with this, and I’m happy to show it to you. Please join me in welcoming the lion.

Second, the homepage is put to work to do marketing. Dressed In Value is a business, and the website hasn’t done much to reflect that. Writing I enjoy, and it is I think an important part of what I am doing, but marketing my services to prospective clients is perhaps more important.

The new design is basically a simple flier, and it didn’t take much time to put together. Very importantly, however, the new homepage works — it works for me, that is. I had thought about the work I do and narrowed it down to 3 basic areas of service: I design stuff, I make websites, and I host websites. Thus the homepage advertises.

I am quite pleased with the outcome of these changes. My wife likes it, too, which is a big deal. Next month I will be entering my third year of freelancing full-time. So, here’s to another year! — a more profitable year!