I had planned to tackle this project a bit earlier in the year but as is often the case, personal work has to take a back seat to client work for obvious reasons. So this weekend as I felt like I was finally able to relax a bit, I dug in and got to redesigning the site. Welcome to Version 4 of Papertree Design!

Different yet similar:

The design is both quite different, yet quite similar to what you might remember as version 3. With this redesign, I decided to keep it pretty minimal, left aligned and focused around a pretty strict grid.

Why maintain a minimalist approach?

One, it is my personal style and two I prefer to focus on the content. Although perhaps not an excellent writer, I enjoy it and I enjoy sharing experiences, tips and advice with people, thus it will remain a large part of this site. I will say that in the early days of planning for this redesign I was a bit conflicted on which direction I should proceed. I really had it stuck in my mind that I should try to push the envelope and create something totally unlike my preferred style, but in the end the function of the site ruled out. I do have plans to attempt something a bit different with my soon to be revamped Lifestream which is moving to a new and separate domain. (when time permits)

Inspiration

I could probably fill a page or two with everything I dug through and mashed up over the course of the last month in my search for inspiration for this redesign. I compiled mood board after mood board and referred to them constantly throughout the process. If I had to list just a few,
Graphic-Exchnage was a huge source of inspiration for me. Jason Santa Maria’s site, as well as a few he worked on while at Happy Cog, such as the AIGA site. Another big one was Retinart.net. Plus quite a few more that you can browse through on QuickSnapper.

Still Working

As with any previous version of this site I will continue to work on it tweaking and improving, finding my little mistakes. You will notice that I shutdown the portfolio portion for a bit as it to needs a refreshing. I do plan to add quite a bit to my Flickr account over the next few days, something I plan to utilize a lot more often in the coming year. Here you will find a variety of work and other projects of a personal nature.

It Shows Improvement

Overall I think this Version shows my gradual improvement as a designer, I still won’t be winning any awards but for myself it was a step forward and that is what I really hope for. As always, I appreciate any thoughts or comments so feel free to leave them below.

Have a suggestion for a post or see something that we could improve, please let us know!