Posts tagged ‘web design’

Shiny new website!

I’ve been working ridiculously long and hard hours over the last couple of weeks to completely redesign and rebuild all of my site, including this very blog, the handmade jewellery shop and the main website.

And finally I’m very pleased to announce that it is all launched and up and running! Hooray!

Screenshot of the new handmade jewellery shop.

The rebuilt shop does feature some updated functionality, but at this stage I haven’t included a currency exchange method. I hope to look into this further shortly.

The new design has been tested across all modern browsers and back to Internet Explorer 7, but if you see anything odd or find anything that isn’t working properly, please get in touch and let me know the details.

However, if you’re still using Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) … well, you’re out of luck! The site no longer supports this very old and out of date browser and I strongly recommend you upgrade to a modern browser, even if to the latest version of Internet Explorer. You can learn more here.

I hope you enjoy the new design – I’m feeling very chuffed with it, myself!

Welcome to my new blog!

A screenshot of how my blog used to look.Well, actually it’s just the old blog with a facelift! But it’s something I’ve been wanting to get done for a long time now and finally it’s up and running.

To the left is a screenshot of how the blog used to look before this redesign. This was the original design for my blog, dating all the way back to 2006.

The design is based heavily on that used in my main website and my shops, but with a twist to differentiate it.

Apart from just being a change in design, I hope that this will signal a fresh start for my blog. I’d like to be making much more use of it – writing more about what I do and how I do it, telling people about indie design and indie designers I recommend … and all sorts.

In the interim, if you’re seeing anything odd in the new design do let me know, including telling me which browser you’re using.

My other life

Yes, I do have another life!

Or at least another aspect of my business life. That is the web design and graphic design part of my working life.

Recently I’ve been working hard on building myself a website for that aspect of my business – something I’ve neglected while I’ve been busy working on other people’s sites!

And finally it’s done (well, as done as a website ever gets!). If you’re interested in having a look you can visit the Web design & more website.

If you’re interested in the ins and outs of running or promoting a website, you can also check out my web design blog.

New website design (and a launch discount!)

After proving to myself that I am my own worst design client, I have finally completed a much-needed redesign of my main website at www.simonewalsh.com.

Handmade jewellery website screenshot.

This has also been rolled out to both of my shops – the international jewelry shop and Australian jewellery shop.

The previous design of my site and shops was done in a great hurry after I lost confidence in the primary online selling venue I had been using to that point and decided I needed my own independent shop to best look after my business.

In the space of about three days I had the site design mocked up, built, tested and rolled out. This was an impressive turnaround time, but I had always meant to go back and rebuild it with a design I was happier with. And finally it’s done!

If you encounter any problems in using the new design please let me know.

Next to do is a redesign of this very blog – another project that’s been on the cards for a long time! I hope to get to that in the next few months with any luck.

A launch discount

To celebrate the launch of the redesign you can take advantage of a 15% discount using the code redesign when you checkout (valid to 19 August 2009).

This discount code is valid in both my handmade jewelry shop (prices in US$, shipping everywhere) and my handmade jewellery shop (prices in AU$, shipping to Australia and NZ).

FINALLY!

Yes, I am finally finished the big web-related job I’ve been working on since late last year, along with another small one.

And finally I can get back to jewellery making and all sorts of other things for myself – until a couple of other lurking web jobs come to fruition, anyway! There is also the possibility that I’ll be moving up to the Blue Mountains in the next little while, which is exciting.

But this weekend and early next week I plan to spend a lot of time at my bench catching up with making work and attending to a whole lot of neglected bits and pieces. And once I’m caught up I’m keen to get to work on some new handmade jewellery!

If you’re interested in what I’ve been working on, the smaller project was for an exhibition of contemporary jewellery called Luminaries, which was organised by the Jewellers & Metalsmiths Group in NSW and shown from 2006.

There are plenty of photographs of some wonderful work by some of the luminaries of Australasian contemporary jewellery.

The much larger project was for the Corporate Responsibility Index in Australia. This was a complete redesign and rebuild of a site that I first created years ago and which was badly out-dated.

Although the front end of the site isn’t particularly complex, the new site runs on a content management system, which is what made it a much larger job to set up. But the good news is that most updates to the site can now be handled by the Index staff.

Gosh, is that the time!?

A succulent from the garden in Port Broughton. I can hardly believe that we’re already half way through January 2009! I think somebody needs to invent something which makes the world slow down a bit.

As for what I’m doing with my new year, well this time of year is usually when I try to regroup – I rest up to recover from the frantic Christmas selling season, start making plans for the rest of the new year and generally try to sort my life out a bit.

This year is a little bit different as I also have two freelance web projects to complete over the next few weeks, so those projects have been taking up a fair bit of brain space, not to mention time. It will be good to have them done.

However, I am also working on personal things, most notably going through every drawer and cupboard in my home (there are a lot of them and they’re all jam-packed!). Everything is being taken out and re-organised – and I’m being ruthless in terms of what gets thrown away, with anything still useable being set aside to be donated to charity.

This is with a view to moving over the next few months – and wanting to avoid taking too much excess ‘stuff’ with me when I do. My plan is to have a go at living in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney. I have a hankering to live in an actual house with a garden and space to have visitors. I also want to be in a place where there are lovely walks to go on (my current situation in suburbia is hardly inspiring in that regard!). Doing any of this within Sydney isn’t really an option for me.

I’m not positive that the Mountains will be where I will stay, but I have incredibly itchy feet and I figure I may as well give it a go. And maybe one day I’ll finally manage to figure out where ‘home’ is for me!

In addition, I’m also making plans to buy a shiny new car. I’ve managed to get by without a car for around 14 years now, having always lived in places where it hasn’t been essential to own one. However, over the last few years I’ve been a bit further from the city and it has been a pain not having a car. Also if I’m to move out of the city entirely, I really have no option but to get one. But it will be a teensy one and I still hope to live close enough to shops and cafes that I can walk to them as much as possible.

In terms of jewellery, I’ve been taking a break from making work having completely worn myself out closer to Christmas. However, in the next few days I need to get back to my bench to start catching up on stock, particularly with Valentine’s Day looming.

So that is where my life is up to! I hope all of you are having a good new year so far.

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