This is greybean.com version 5.0 (codename: keaton).
The live redesign is currently 8% complete.
If you’re here reading this, then you’ve probably been here before. And if you’re here now after having been here before, it must be pretty obvious that something’s going on. Some information has moved. Some is gone. Some doesn’t make any sense. The colors are different. It just plain isn’t as pretty. Where did that weird blue and green picture go?
The fact of the matter is that I’ve begun the arduous process of yet another revamping of the site. After having explored the possibility of switching to a new CMS (namely, Movable Type), I’ve decided that sticking with Wordpress and doing a ton of my own customization is my best bet. It’s open-source, natively dynamic (rather than static), and entirely free (Movable Type has a free version, but I need more power than it comes with—namely, multiple authors).
So, I’ve reverted to the base version (having stripped all of my customization out of the code) of the Wordpress theme, K2 (which is now at beta two), and I’ll be building my own functionality and look and feel on top of it. And I’ll be doing it live on the site, for all to see, so you may run into some funky looking stuff, or even some broken funtionality, on your visits to the ‘BEAN as I learn how to operate all this fancy PHP and CSS shiznit. In fact, there may be some days where I’ll have stripped all of the CSS completely out of the site leaving some sort of a text-only pile of information. For those of you who remember the internet ca. 1994, this should be fun.
But, please bear with us. This shouldn’t take forever, and it promises to be quite a learning experience for me.
So, as of this moment, consider the redesign initiated. I give you greyBEAN.com version 5.0 (codename: keaton), now running at 1% of capacity.
Okay, so, the guy’s my hero, at least in my chosen field (as he is for a lot of people who do what I do). He’s the most famous graphic designer in the world. USA Today called him “the closest thing to a rock star” in the industry. He’s written a novel that was selected as a New York Times Notable Book of 2001, the rights to which he recently sold to a Hollywood studio to be made into a movie, and he’s currently working on a new novel. He designed the covers for all of the recent Sin City graphic novel reprint editions. He’s edited and contributed to innumerable books about the DC Comics universe, and he’s written an actual Superman-Batman strip, which was painted by Alex Ross. He’s got a monograph of his work coming out in a month, and he’s speaking at AIGA tonight in Chicago.
And by some incredible happenstance, I’m working with/for him on his first official website. And it’s just gone live today. It’s a limited, preview-type site at this point, but it’s there. And it’s my work. Go check it out.
Okay, kids, here it finally is. This site has been aching for the assistance of a content management system for, literally, years longer than there has been such a thing. So, now it has one.
Welcome, officially, to greybean.com v4.5 lite. I’m leaving the ‘lite’ moniker attached despite the fact that this site is already much more richly concentrated with information than it’s ever been. It just doesn’t have the same sort of useless bells and whistles that it has in the past.
The site is powered by WordPress, an open source, and very powerful, CMS. Its look, feel and functionality are based on Michael Heilemann’s incredibly popular Kubrick theme. Expect the look of the site to change semi-frequently over the next few weeks or months as I learn more about WordPress, Kubrick, PHP and CSS. I’ll put up a more detailed colophon in the very near future.
So, what does all of this really mean?