A quick revamp…
Like fashion, web design trends change every few years, rendering what used to be a state-of-the-art site about as attractive as this. So it was with the site I made for my longtime friend Steve Chaggaris. It was actually the third version I’ve made for Steve since 1999 ish, meaning it was the last holdover from my days as an amateur hobbyist before I trained professionally. Yes, the site looked great and did the trick, but it was made with Front Page, FP extensions, and iFrames. It was the web design portfolio equivalent of having a junk car on cinder blocks in the front yard. It also meant Steve had to ask me to add every new photo and gig, which I tended to procrastinate with. And the flash music player was so popular that one day his avid fans actually crashed my whole VPS. Oops.
Over the past fortnight I revamped Steve’s site onto WordPress. It was an impressive reminder of how far I’ve come as a web designer in just four years. Everything that I did on the previous version with graphics and (gulp) Front Page is now done in CSS. I used the Sliding-Door theme with a manually added second (right) sidebar. I gave Steve the Gigpress plugin, stuck it in that second sidebar as well, and also had him rather patiently transfer all those hundreds of photos onto a Flickr account. End result here. Steve’s site is now much cleaner, lighter, and more well behaved. And my portfolio and professional reputation are now completely Front Page and frizzy perm free.
We had the pleasure of a visit from Steve and his lovely wife a few weeks ago, and we hope they’ll be back soon.
