Looking back it’s hard to believe that I have been blogging for several years, with a few stops in between. I originally played around with phpbb forums before a I came across the WordPress 1.2. Compared to what I was doing with phpbb I immediately fell in love with WordPress and began learning HTML, CSS and PHP to tweak and play around with its design.
Originally I began writing around tech and products but I never really found my thing. I had built a small community with my forum and shifting my focus over to my blog pulled the community over and within my first year I had a strong readership of nearly 7k+ readers. Eventually, I began diving into other topics and areas outside of tech and products, which I have stuck too till today however with the result being that I have come and gone from blogging spending my wakeing hours worrying about startup issues, college and the such – causing the blog to complete die and fade away. It eventually became a playing ground to test various ideas. Now, I want to start a new personal digital chapter with hermannk.com/. You typically end up going on a blog and instantaneously notice what the generic content of the author is, however moving forward I will remain on my path of randomness – posting around life, tech and reviews.
I thoroughly enjoy writing and dispersing my thoughts in long form articles and with that in mind want to also design a better experience for consuming them. If you have followed this site much over the past years you might have noticed the numerous redesigns however what you see now is here to stay.
Mobile
My last redesign nearly a year ago was built with mobile in mind however I never really got around to making it fully responsive. On my phone that typically meant a pinch zoom to read anything properly. Considering how we consume so much information on our phones and tablets, I figured it was time to fully go minimalistic (I love simplicity) and mobile.
Taking into account that LTE networks and devices means the fastest Internet connection people have will eventually be their smartphone and not their home connection is a crazy thought. Hence, I want you to be able to read this easily on your mobile device.
Design
Now I have gone through several redesigns over the past years and would probably need more than two hands to count them all, however as previously mentioned this was my playground to test out stuff. Why I didn’t setup another instance remains in the clouds. I wanted to completely rethink the site and not just add another coat of paint on top of what already was. I want the content to be the main focus, single column, perhaps variations of a sidebar but nothing that causes the site to be too cluttered in the end. Photography is another aspect – publishing large photos also within posts without causing anything to break or load slower. Clear, crisp pictures but Ill get to that in a second. Simple colors, easy on the eyes and a simple Google Font for clean reading.
Retina Resolution and Picture Perfection
Now we can debate on the topic of retina displays and necessity however just to ensure that the site is ready for that, I need every icon, image, background to look crisp on HiDef displays, especially considering the amount of photos I plan to upload.
The most pressing area for Retina are mobile devices as there are not a lot of desktops and laptops out there aside from perhaps the Retina MacBook Pros. In a year or so we may look at things a bit differently as these type of devices start become more frequent for the masses. The reason this concerns me is the fact that I want to begin using more pictures in my posts and reviews. Renata and I have been getting into photography through my brother and with our Canon EOS650D have all the reason more to take better pictures for articles and reviews. I love taking a quick shot on Instagram with my phone however it disappoints me to have such a high quality DSLR and not use it sufficiently. So the new site needs to deliver that.
All In All
With the ambition to post on a frequent basis and the new layout I only hope to grow back my original numbers in terms of readership and to be able to give a glimps into my endeavors – whether work, startup, projects or random thoughts. With that I hope you enjoy the new layout which Im sure to be tweaking over the next period, but will not completely redesign.
What are your thoughts on cluttered websites? The more content the better?
