It’s been 2 and a half years since I launched my version 2 design for this website. Today I’ve finally clicked the publish button and launched version 3 sporting a very different look.
I’ve lost the Digital Farm branding, seeing I am no longer freelancing under that intended name and it only causes confusion. I’ve changed my vibrant, bright colour palette for a more pastel, earthy one, and I collaborated with the awesome Cape Town based illustrator Alex Latimer to design me some header and footer graphics.
I gave Alex quite a detailed brief as to the illustrations I wanted, but the end result far exceeded my expectations. The illustrations portray my personality and half baked nationality to a tee. The little springbok and warthogs being chased by the big dinosaur from South Africa (represented by our lovely Table Mountain and the Johannesburg skyline) to England (represented by Big Ben) are all us South Africans flocking to the money, adventures and travel opportunities Europe has to offer, whilst the lone springbok that appears when you hover over my logo represents the urge we all face in wanting to go back to our fantastic country as soon as possible, especially in the winter months 🙂
I’ve definitely placed more emphasis on my twitter stream, as us lazy WooThemes designers are tending to micro-blog these days. The ajax powered sidebar module tracks not only my tweets, but the chit-chat I have with others.
The “underground” footer section represents my sometimes claustrophobic home office setup with news from the office and my latest photos.
My page and post content styling still needs some work, as does my portfolio. I also still have some ideas for my Web Startups pages, but after sitting on this design for a good month I think it is time to unleash it.
Please do let me know what you think and if you would be so kind share the news via a tweet.
29 responses
Funky theme Mark, very nice!
Wow, looks fantastic Mark, good job.
Nice design, totally different from the previous 🙂
Great redesign! Job well done!
Wow awesome update Mark, the go home jumping impala (springbok I thought at first) and the footer cave are the best parts.
Nice one!
Updated the post, of course they are little bokke. What an insult to them 🙂 Thanks for pointing that out.
Bloody marvellous work, as always. I’m well jealous 🙂
PS: you need a matching new favicon 🙂
Thanks Janet. I’ve just added a favicon.
Brilliant. Brilliant. Love the style, well done!
Lovely color palette and illustrations. I do feel however that your menu is having problems becoming friends with the rest of the site — perhaps losing the white borders might do good? I also think that the use of Gill Sans is a bit too sharp and crisp and crashes with the otherwise gentle and soft feel that your site has.
Love the “Go Home”. And from the footer, I believe you love Beer more than anything else! lol 😛
Nice and great design Mark!
Love it!
looks nice, very soft style with original drawings!
Very cool Markus!
Very nice – I love the little touches like the fold under each ‘heading tab’.
Reprezent! Nice one Mark. I’m a big fan of Alex’s work, the dino running off with the clock tower is awesome, hah!
Mark dude this design is AWESOME!!! Nice one bru
Awesome 😀 I like the plane best 😀
Love it! Brilliant work. Really.
Nicely done, Mark …
I love it. It looks fantastic!!!!
You’re a genius.
You are a role model Mark.
I am in love! With the theme, not you (that would be…odd).
This is a totally awesome upgrade Mark! I loaded the page and I was like “WOAH”.
The colors and design are right on target! Good work my man.
Fantastic direction, really nice work!
I agree, very cool 🙂
Да, такой блог стопудово надо раскручивать сильнее – что б как можно больше людей о нем узнали! 🙂