If you’re a designer (or anyone in a similar business), what I’m about to tell you is likely not news, but based on my recent hellish experience, I thought it would still be pertinent to go over this.

The “this” I am speaking of is, of course, why being your own client sucks. It’s a horrible, detestable, deplorable task that is an unfortunate fact of life. Perhaps I am just an awful perfectionist, or just have masochistic design tendencies, but the path I rode to get to my current design was a long, painful, ten month ride.

At first, the project I gave to myself seemed easy: just redesign my site, as I was tired of my old design and it needed some definite freshening up. Seems simple enough, right? Just come up with a new design, code it, and get it online – no big deal.

…But oh how wrong I was. Frankly, I should have known better, as I’ve gone through this trouble of designing for myself before, but sadly I forgot and “history repeats itself because no one was listening the first time.” (—Anonymous)

So without the slightest second thought about the difficulty of the task in front of me, I began on the first design:

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Well, it’s taken eleven months, but I’ve finally managed to produce a new design I’m (fairly) happy with. I’m never quite satisfied with my work, so I’m sure I’ll tweak the design here and there, but at least it’s a change from the former (not so great) design.

Fairly soon I’ll be writing up a somewhat detailed look over my design process and why I’m undoubtedly my own worst customer. It will detail the many other designs I created, pondered, and subsequently scrapped, as well as some other fun tidbits.

As for right now – I hope you enjoy the new design.