Over time, our digital footprints add up and create a cyber world that starts to take on some of that very same messiness. Change a font or a layout or where something is, and it bothers us. You can take advantage of that need for comfort by making your digital work a little less sterile, a bit less squared off. Seth Godin
As I told Tim recently:
“I’ve stumbled upon Lain Sellar and Zoe Veness and find their work amazing. It’s something about hand drawn, black and white, stuff that gets me.”
That’s the logic behind the design of this blog. It’s not quite hand-drawn (like this piece by Zoe), but it’s not glossy by any means. There are plenty of web designers out there that can do slick. I want to do more “less squared off.”
Sweat and Grime
I was interviewed by Tim Harcourt-Powell, for his blog Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.
Sure, I’ll be 36 soon and should really “get my act together” and “get a real job,” but for all I know I could die at 37, and now, at least I have a bunch of cool robots that I drew, new friends I’ve made in different cities, and seen more of America than many of my peers. And I’m cool with that.
You know, I’ve wondered if I should write about my personal life here, as I try to use this site as a way to showcase my portfolio as a web professional.
What would potential clients think?
Then I thought, well, I’d rather not work for a bureaucratic workplace, sitting in meetings all day with a dated dress-code and a time clock in the break room. And I’d rather work with clients who feel the same way. I like working with clients who appreciate sweat and grime with their project. People who’ve become who they are through hard work and doing their best to color outside the lines.
During my travels I’ve met a lot of smart people. Most of these smart people were doing things that weren’t web related, but they were doing awesome stuff nonetheless. Writers. Musicians. Artists.
Usually our conversations included them saying, “I need a website.” They don’t want to blog (they’re busy doing stuff), but they want a website. Someplace to tell people to go to check out their stuff and get information. Like this one I set up for my dad who offers guitar lessons out of his home.
So I’m writing this post for those friends of mine, and maybe you have friends like that, too.
1. Go buy a domain name. I’ve used NameSecure for awhile. Go buy it. It’ll cost you around $20 or so. Buy it for two years. One year is too short (you might forget to renew it), so two years is a good time.
2. Go to Tumblr and sign up for an account. Try to keep your Tumblr blog name the same as your domain name. Log in to your new Tumblr account and click on CUSTOMIZE APPEARANCE (it’s on the right hand side).
3. Click on THEMES, then on the drop down menu pick SINGLE COLUMN. Scroll through those and pick the one you like. Some you have to pay for, some are free. For now, just pick one. Click USE to select the theme you want, then SAVE. Then close. WHEW.
4. Now, go to SETTINGS for your blog. In the URL section, select USE A CUSTOM DOMAIN NAME. That’s the domain name you bought earlier. Plug your domain name in there.
This is where it gets fun! Tumblr wrote some good documentation on this, called Using a custom domain name.: http://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/custom_domains
5. You’ll need to log back into NameSecure and update your A records. Log in, and click on the domain name you want to manage. Now you’ll want to click on the blue button at the bottom that says EDIT ZONE FILE. Sounds technical!
Where you see the A RECORDS section, copy and paste Tumblr’s IP address in there: 72.32.231.8
Click update, then SUBMIT at the bottom.
This can take up to 48 hours to process. That’s just the way this IP / A Record stuff works. So don’t be scared that it doesn’t work right away. Use Tumblr’s CHECK DOMAIN page to test your domain, to see if it’s working: http://www.tumblr.com/check_domain
Now, while that’s working, let’s go back to Tumblr and basically finish your one page website.
While it’s technically true that we’ve just set up a BLOG, you’re not required to update this thing every five minutes with photos of cats and/or sandwiches. What you want to do now is just put some information up on the site about yourself. What you do. How to contact you. Maybe a photo.
6. Back in Tumblr you have a dashboard. Click on PHOTO.
Now here you can upload a photo of what you do. Maybe a photo of yourself, or something you make. (If you don’t want to do a photo, you can just click TEXT instead of PHOTO).
For the text that you write, just be natural and short. No need for 500 words. Include contact info at the end of your text. Now click submit. Now you’ve basically set up a “landing page” for people to visit (or land on, I guess) and learn about what you do.
7. Play around with it a bit. Get used to Tumblr. The reason I didn’t put screen shots in here with pretty red arrows if because you’re smart and can figure it out for yourself.
After 24 hours or so your real domain name should start pointing to your Tumblr site, and once that happens your site will look a bit less “bloggy” and more like a “real web site,” and you can start telling clients and friends, “hey! check out my site!” Also works great for Twitter and Facebook.
If you’re having troubles with any part of this, I encourage you to keep playing around with it. If you’re really stuck, I can assist you for a fee that will cost around the same as what you paid for the domain name. Contact me (sethw@sethwismyname.com) and we’ll arrange something.
