09 March 2007
The new me...soon
When I decided to revamp my business site, I was looking on istockphoto for ideas. During the search, I didn't really know how I wanted it to look. Fortunately, that decision was taken out of my hands when I decided to go the traditional route with the DA series--and looking for an agent. I put Celise, The Business Owner on hold and focused on Celise, The Writer. Which meant re-vamping my author site. After only having it for a year. And after somehow deleting the blue stripes on the sides. I must've done it by accident while I was updating the content. Oops, my bad.Anyhoo, it's a woman's perogative to change her mind and I think it's time for a change. The one I have right now was designed for less than $200 by people who weren't really web designers: just great artists. I'm not complaining or talkin' smack, I'm just considering this site to be a Starter Site. I wanted a cartoony feel and didn't really get it because I didn't have the money to pay for it.
But I do now (Thank you, IRS refund).
That's not to say that I wasn't happy with the results. I was. At the time. You get what you pay for and in the back of my mind I knew that I was going to change it up sometime. Just not this soon. Deleting those blue stripes and leaving nothing but blank peach space lit a fire under my butt to get things moving. After looking at other authors' websites, I began to get an idea of how I wanted mine to look. I kept seeing really cool blog designs--and the same designer--over and over again:
Long before I decided to use them as designers for both of my sites, I switched to their hosting services. Emily will be my designer and I can't wait to see what she comes up with after I bombard her with images and content. She's going to start on it in a couple of weeks.
In keeping with the cartoony feel--and the cartoonish image of me--I wanted to find an illustrator who was good at drawing cartoonish people, with the finished product being completed in Photoshop. Not so much a caricature, but life-like humans. I placed an ad on Guru.com (if you need someone for anything, just post your project on here and watch the bids roll in) and put about 10 "Possibles" in my Favorites.
And chose JD Massie. I liked his graphic design work, particularly how he drew the Batman and Robin. It's what I was looking for.
I've commissioned him to do 6 different poses of me--describing each pose in great detail--and this is what he's done so far:
This was the initial picture he came up with, just to see how close he was to the image of me. The Hubby thinks he got the eyes right, but nothing else. I didn't want an exact replica of me. Just something more real-looking than what's on the site now. I love it and it's currently my default picture on my MySpace page.
This one is going on my Home Page. This image is going to rest on top of my name. It's kinda like a "Welcome to my site" pose, y'know?
This photo is going on my Newsletter Page, where you can sign up to receive my monthly newsletter, The 4-1-1 on Celise.
These have been uploaded to my MySpace page as well where they will be interchangeable with the other photos. I'll post more as he creates--and I approve--them. But I can't wait to see what they look like on the finished site. Everyone will be invited to the enveiling and I'll be giving away prizes, too.
So, what do you think?
Labels: The 4-1-1 on Me
