About 2 weeks ago I woke in the middle of the night with a mission statement and a general idea for my web site still burning in my head.  Today, that mission statement went on the front page of jobriga.com.

This is a much-needed improvement to the site, removing the broken images, broken portfolio links, and outdated items on the old site (see screenshot below).  Having a simple site is better than having a broken one.

The idea for the old page was to link to multiple projects in my “portfolio,” and to list major web projects on the right.  I am proud of the first two items here (The Jardin de la Nina Maria and Kerryandwillie.com) but www.joesanswers.com is never updated, www.joannanddan.com is now defunct.  The MPRP Apostolate is worth a look but should be higher on the page.

Also, there are a bunch of basic mistakes with the old page:

1. Gigantic broken images in the center of the page
2. E-mail with @ sign listed on the front page – hellooooo  spammers!
3. Portfolio items on right take a long time to produce and add
4. Loads of broken links – the idea was to link to items in a dynamic Drupal site, but Drupal appears to be WAY too high maintenance (at least for me).
5. Lots of images; not as optimized for search engines as it could be.
6. “Bad” code – lots of tables, some CSS, not great structure.  I’d like to put my newfound coding abilities to the test and create a site that’s visually appealing but still shows off some coding ability.

My new approach: put up a simple site, and keep adding features/graphics/ideas over time.

Today is day 1 of the new design; I’m looking forward to implementing the rest of my ideas!

A new font named Clearview may soon be appearing on highways across the US, replacing the fonts on the old signs.

Typographica has some nice comparisons of the old and new font, and it even has its own web site!

SIMPLICITY offers thoughts from the MIT Media Lab. Brilliant writing about the tension between administration and creativity, as well as fascinating laws for simplicity.

Johnson Banks has a number of words which match my own limited experience with design and media. I also like the cool “mind map” feature of the navigation, though it doesn’t remember where I’ve been on the site between sessions.

Brand New linked to an interesting post on fluid brands – brands that remain constant in multiple media and situations.

It’s official. The age of the static brand is coming to an end. Organisations, companies, institutions, even charities are realizing that having identity schemes that ‘flex’ and adapt to circumstances are more appropriate in the multi-channel, multi-lingual world that brands now inhabit.

Over-controlled brands are starting to look stiff and old-fashioned, but not all clients (and certainly not all design companies) have yet woken up to this latest shift.

…the benefits of developing fluid, flexible systems to encompass everything from fonts, to colours, to words, to images, to logos are enormous – with a bit of hard work and a good idea an organization stops being about just a logo and gains a complete visual and verbal language.

More here.

Johnson Banks has a pretty sweet web site of their own showing how to minimize the logo while showcasing their ability.

Interesting to me, as I rethink this web site (yet again). How best to communicate the “Jobriga” identity on a blog, a wiki, a portfolio, and an about page? The icon I’ve used for Flickr and other online resources actually seems to translate well – it’s not reducible to business card size but I like the play of black and white on the left and color on the right. Not sure if it’ll translate to a full visual identity for this web site, but could be a useful starting point.

Speak Up (among others) has posted a review fo the new logo for the London 2012 Olympics. Here’s the logo:

As Speak Up points out, the brand itself does feel very MTV circa 1980s, but the accompanying video and variations in the graphic treatment of the jagged colors showcase an overall branding initiative rather than a single logo that will dominate. Here’s a video of the London 2012 brand in action here.

It interests me that the logo itself is only part of a multimedia branding initiative. There’s the logo, but there are undoubtedly guidelines on the way the colors move, the types of colors and high-contrast patterns that can be used, and enough flexibility to use the brand in multiple situations.

I’m reminded of the new NBC News campaign, discussed at length at Brand New:

I rarely say this about campaigns, but this is borderline brilliant in two respects. First, it creates a simple parallel: What is as numerous and varied and as the news? Color. Second, it poises msnbc.com to own color. Every color. Not just Target red, or Starbucks green, or Wal-Mart blue. Every single color from lavender to burgundy to black. Not even monopolian Pantone has been able to do this — and their business is color.

Because of its extreme media reach, devoted audience and daily relevance, msnbc.com can engrain the color spectrum idea into the consciusness of the public. And when you own the full color spectrum, the possibilities for a vibrant, memorable campaign are almost assured; there is a color in there for everyone!

That seems to be the branding goals in 2007 – you can’t just create a logo for all media, you have to create sound, images, movement, treatments for all media and all senses as well. Can patented brand odors be far behind?