After 18 months, I decided that my website and blog were in need of a new design. After several long nights, I am proud to launch the latest incarnation of my website Adam Dimech Online. Over the past 11 years, the website has had many appearances and this would constitute the sixth major design change.

Why bother, you might ask?

The previous design was starting to look cluttered and was not adapting well to expansion in the website. Whilst considering the new look for the website, I had a few aims:

1. I wanted a design that was unique, modern, but also personal.

2. I wanted to preserve the “floral grunge” style of the previous design, but without it being so messy. (Does that make sense?!)

3. I wanted to unify the design of my blog with my general website. (Previously, the two didn’t unify).

4. I wanted to get the designing and implementation done in as shorter time as possible. (There are plenty of other things I’d rather do with my time!)

My task over the last few weeks has been to conceptualise the layout and site architecture, design the graphic elements, code the HTML and CSS, implement the PHP-includes and scripts, then test it all out to make sure it worked well in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Despite the intense workload, all of that was relatively easy. What wasn’t easy for me was to design a WordPress theme from scratch. Whilst the WordPress theme codex was useful, I gained as much from pulling the old theme apart to see how it all worked. I am pleased with the new look, and have learnt a lot from working on it. And best of all, my blog now has a completely unique appearance.

There are just few small loose ends that need to be tied-up, but basically the job is done. I hope this design lasts a little longer than the previous one!