Sometime after 2006 I was unable to balance my time between payroll-type work, design-work, blogging, and tending to the design of my site. Every year I would feel the itch to redesign my site, trying to get a great “look” for it while juggling other responsibilities. This year, I decided I would take a break and actually do what I want with the site.

Richmond is a redesign based on principles offered by the 960 Grid System, minus the crufty markup and non-sensical class names for positioning and sizing. I have always been a markup freak, and while my work is far from perfect (gotta love those clearing line breaks!), I strive for it with every project. Buckling a few trends on the post Web 2.0 aesthetic of drop shadows, 3-d layered affects, handwriting fonts and visual cues for the illiterate, I concentrated on a more abstract aesthetic. While grunginess has been associated with vintage effects and material distress, I used the same brushes to aim for a fiery afterglow.

As an avid photographer with a desire to once more share his photos with the world, I chose to use a dark background to help my shots jump out of the page. My photos are generally shot on a vivid setting, and the colors stand out against the background of the site itself. For those who are first-time visitors as of 14 June 2009, here’s a screenshot of what it used to look like:

Screenshot of former theme, Chroma