I just relaunched this site with an updated design, and updated code. The design is an evolution from what was here before. The layout is mostly the same, and the previous color scheme carried forward. I improved the legibility of the type, and switched from serving my own web fonts to Google web fonts. I brought news items back to the home page in order to keep updated content there. Some text content has been updated. I also added categorization in the work section.
I switched from XHTML to HTML5. There are still some areas that need to be reworked a bit further to take advantage of the new HTML5 structure. I had been resisting HTML5—as with any technology change, there is always a time investment required to understand new features, and account for unexpected problems.
Now that I’ve switched over, I’m enjoying the simplifications such as the short doctype declaration. I’ve been able to reduce code and exchange few divs and IDs such as header and footer for the new HTML5 elements. Internet Explorer gave me some problems, but that’s nothing new. I expect most of my future projects will use HTML5 instead of XHTML.
As always, there is room for further enhancement such as optimization on mobile devices. I split the CSS into three separate files to make it more modular, and easier to build in mobile and other alternate style sheets in the future. Overall, I’m pleased with how it turned out, and can switch my focus back to creating content and working on client projects.