Tumble. The writings and findings of a web designer.

Since going out on my own in May of 2008, I’ve been operating as a web designer and developer under the business name, Mighty Dream, without a real-deal website. A splash page only works for so long. A year-and-a-half in and still without a website is just ridiculous, in my book, especially so for a web designer. My former portfolio, although outdated, served me well and was enough to land me plenty of work, but still, I hadn’t felt entirely “for real” yet and have been looking forward to putting up some of my latest work. Better late than never, I’ve finally managed to string together enough in-between-time to finish it, it’s live, and I’m happy.

Tumblr, FTW!

Much of the details surrounding this site are included under the Colophon, so I won’t repeat here. But I did want to elaborate a little more on why I chose to integrate Tumblr for “the blog section” of the website instead of using a more standard platform like WordPress or Blogger. My former portfolio, WordPress-powered, naturally included a blog and, for the life of it, I never made a substantial post. Perhaps now that I’m working professionally, I would post more; but since then I’ve grown accustomed to Tumblr’s quick, mixed-media approach to blogging (er, microblogging). Before, I felt like every post had to have a certain amount of substance which caused me never to post—ideas would just come and go. With Tumblr, the media-specific entry options encourage posting short, quick bits of media, links, and text, but also allow for longer, more in-depth posts when needed. Albeit not as powerful as WordPress in this department, it’s enough for me.

The backend for the rest of the site is a simple CMS coded using the phenomenal PHP framework, CakePHP. The only issue with “integrating” a Tumblr-powered tumblelog into a site is that Tumblr is a separately hosted service and any dynamic or updatable content stored in the CMS would need updated manually in the Tumblr template. In my case, a key area is the footer which contains two text blocks (managed in the CMS) and thumbnails of recent work that are generated automatically as new work is added. To work around this, I created simple JavaScript widgets that output these text blocks and thumbnails, and seem to be the simplest way to fake the integration.

Up Next

I’m currently working on a project I’m very excited about that revolves around an iPhone hardware accessory. Working again via Bust Out Solutions, the client has a phenomenal idea and I’m lucky enough to be spearheading the design of the iPhone app, web application, and public-facing website. It’s my first time taking a stab at iPhone interface design and, so far, it’s been a blast, a challenge, and a really nice change of pace; I’m already looking forward to more iPhone-related projects in the future. More on this project when it wraps up in early November.

And for personal projects, I’ve been working on a redesign of Simplenote’s web application in the form of a Greasemonkey script. Like many, I learned of Simplenote via John Gruber’s post and it has since become an app (both iPhone and web flavors) I use everyday. However, the web application needed a little love, in my opinion, especially considering my daily usage. The redesign (screenshot) makes it more desktop-app-like and I find it especially useful when used with Fluid in MenuExtra SSB mode where it conveniently hangs out in my menu bar. I’m aiming to make it publicly available very soon, but in the meantime, you’re welcome to try it out now by DMing me on Twitter. It’s now available here.