Eric A Mann

My first publishing project, Career Crossroads, is done!  Jumping Duck Media is officially off the ground, and we’ve already ordered several copies of the book to fulfill exisiting pre-orders.

On top of that, a distributor in Rochester, NY has also picked up the book and is actively selling it through Amazon.com!  How cool is that?

Now we just need to finish the website…

Based on advice from friends, I’ve updated my project portfolio.  In addition to adding an extra presentation (complete with download!) I’ve added a section on creative design.  A lot of concept work goes into every project I work on, and I want to be more able to demonstrate that through my portfolio.

Speaking of which, one of my current projects, Career Crossroads, is nearing completion.  I hope to add information about that project to the portfolio very soon - hopefully by the end of next week!

I’ve been cluttering this little corner of the Internet for just over a year now, so I though it was time for an update and redesign of the site.

For the curious, here’s a visual history of the site:

First Attempt

The first iteration of the site was built entirely in HTML with tables.  There’s an advantage to table-based web design: you don’t have to know anything about web development to use it.  The disadvantages are: it’s clunky, doesn’t play well with other browsers, and is near impossible to edit later!  I’m obviously missing a lot in this screenshot, but I think you get the idea, right?  Since I’ve abandoned this design I’ve misplaced much of the original artwork.  Surrounding the text was a purple, semi-transparent bubble outlined in green and red lines.  Just describing the design makes me shudder …

Second Try

The second version of the website came about the same time my blog, Mindshare Marketing, began to take off.  The oranges were far more friendly than the ominous black, and the color scheme worked well together for being what it was.  This was based off a hand-sketched image I put together for my new business cards and actually went over pretty well.  I enjoyed making the design and everyone told me it was a lot easier to navigate (and read!) than the old one.  Unfortunately, I still hadn’t gotten away from tables yet …

Third Time’s the Charm?

Thirdly, I decided to get away from the light orange and make something a little more substantial and impactful.  I went for a more robust color (the darker orange of the business card image) and added a real sidebar to my table-based website.  My coding skills were still a little rusty from years of neglect, but I could tell I was starting to innovate a little more here and there.  I finally had a fleshed-out website that looked remotely professional and actually gathered some traffic as time went on.  Then again, we can see my “most recent” update on this version of the site was October of 2007 … so not much time had actually passed …

Par 4

At this point, I had been doing a lot of work in WordPress and had finally begun using PHP scripts alongside my dusty old HTML code.  For the first time I felt comfortible creating a scripted site entirely by scratch and pulled together something stream-lined, small, and incredibly easy to maintain.  The hardest part in developing this site wasn’t programming but testing … I had never installed a server on my desktop and couldn’t actually run the PHP scripts locally - everything had to be written, uploaded, and then tested.  It took quite a while to get this version of the site up-and-running, but considering it was up for over 6 months, I’m fairly happy with the work.  Those of you who really liked this particular site can still find it, actually: http://oldsite.eamann.com.  Yay for nostalgia!

Fifth Stop, All’s Well

Ironically, this is the last of my websites to be transferred to a WordPress-based CMS.  I’m comfortible enough now with PHP script that customizing and overhauling the WP codes and themes is no longer daunting.  I like having the site run smoothly, and now I can plug-and-play content both locally and remotely.  The days of manually editing tables and creating sites page-by-page are long lost to fond (?!) memory as I embark on a new journey of simplifying my life.

This site has transitioned from a digital resume to a launching pad for my personal blog to a home page for a consulting sole proprietorship.  Now it takes on a different role: the digital home of ALL things Eric Mann.  My personal brand needs some bolstering in the market, and I need a site that focuses entirely on that.  The redesign isn’t complete, but will continue now in smaller steps as the largest ones have been taken … finally …