The New Charfish Design is Here

The New Charfish Design is Here

written by Charlie Pabst

The long awaited, much anticipated new Charfish Design is here. It’s funky and fresh and is still covered with drops of morning dew.

While there was really nothing wrong with the old site, it was nonetheless a bit drab. It was drab in a pretty interesting way, but for a design blog, still pretty drab. The mundane quality of it actually deterred me from updating the blog as much as I’d like. It’s really no fun writing content for a blog that personally makes you go, “…meh.” It’s like putting on a silk suit after a hard day’s work in the sun, and not taking a shower first.

The new Charfish theme is based off a theme by Derek Powazek called Depo Clean. I’m a super picky guy when it comes to clean code and having things arranged in a logical manner. I’ve been disappointed by popular and often expensive WordPress themes which have code so messy that altering it was like a trip to the dentist. Derek’s theme is not like this. It’s clean and beautiful and working with it was a pleasure. You Premium theme sellers should take note.

Things that may be of interest

  • The Archives page is stellar, if I say so myself. Which I just did. It’s neat, tidy and shows everything I’ve done here at Charfish.
  • The Portfolio has been redone and updated with some recent work. A lot of the work in the portfolio was produced as a joint effort with Men with Pens and has been noted as such. To read more about my relationship with Men with Pens, read the original post by Pen Man James. I couldn’t say it any better than he does.
  • A slick new 404 Error page. Hey…just because it’s an error page doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, right?

What’s not new

The content itself is the same as it was, although I did delete a couple posts that were redundant to things already in the Portfolio. I also got rid of a couple categories that were bulking things up unnecessarily. But everything that was here before is still here in one place or another. If you discover any broken links in the coming months, give me a shout. In exchange I’ll shower you with my choice of either money or thanks.

Charfish HookThe hook. That’s right. I actually had one very specific request to NOT get rid of the hook. (Thanks, Kelly!) It’s still here. Not as much as the old site, but it’s here and wearing a new tux. By the way…if you need proof that branding matters, this paragraph speaks volumes.

Now what?

If it seems that Charfish is a foundering blog or small design firm that does one logo every trimester, don’t let appearances fool you. This is a very busy little design firm and things don’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.

That said, I’m first and foremost a writer. So while I may be designing a lot behind the scenes, I’d sure like to be writing more. And that’s what I’ll be doing, so you can expect more blog posts on a regular basis. Topics of note will be:

  • Basics of Design
  • Real, usable, applicable tips on freelancing
  • Tutorials on Illustrator, Photoshop, Cinema 4D and After Effects
  • Case studies on real-life projects
  • Process studies
  • A gazillion other things

What I’d like help with

While the readers here aren’t many, I can say that we’re a closely knit little bunch. As you can tell from the redesign, I do care what you think. I’d like to open up the comments to your thoughts on the redesign, topics you’d like to see here, etc. If you don’t feel like baring yourself to the public, feel free to drop me an email instead. But either way, I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for sticking with me through the rough stages. Here’s to the future!