Colophan

Historical Background

This website, known hereafter as “Site”, in its original form, was the manifestation of the ambition of a man, who desperately needed something creative to do [when not working from home]. While stay-at-home orders were in effect during the Global Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic from 2020-2022, his need to be both creative and productive became readily apparent.

Designed in Hamilton, Ontario Canada, the Site was launched on May 5, 2021, as a testament that good things could still happen during this stressful period in recent history. This site is my labour of love, and I hope that you will enjoy it.

The time spent locked away at our humble château, was put to good use, and I can attest to having learned a few new skills. Have I found that second calling for the midlife career change to web development? I must say no. However, my return to the custom of saving the world one day at a time is where it is at for me. Hence you will find me periodically updating this Site to keep it fresh, current, and lively as I navigate the waters of life.

Platform

The Site has been built and hosted entirely through Squarespace.  During the planning phase of this crazy project, I talked to several people who build and maintained websites, read numerous reviews, options, and even googled “Best website builder 2021”.  Weighing out the pros and cons, as well as weighing in on my comfort levels in tackling this project, my confidence was bolstered by Squarespace’s claim that I could achieve greatness.

Domain

Originally purchased through GoDaddy.com I transferred my domain registration to Squarespace in May 2021, where it has remained ever since. Part of the reason for my decision to migrate it over was my discovery that this new platform is much easier to renew and manage the Site and domain all at once with a few simple clicks.

Template

After spending hours searching through templates clicking back and forth and trying to determine what the minute differences were, I finally settled with using the Bailard template. It became the gateway to help me get started and pique my imagination.

As a result, I have made every effort to customize and break the mold as much as possible to reflect my creative side and see just how far I could push Squarespace’s boundaries. In doing so I discovered that if something doesn’t look right, you can bank on it being my fault. I admit I do get in over my head occasionally, so, here is my request: please let me know if something looks off, and I will happily fix it. Or in some cases get someone to fix it for me. This is part of the learning curve – mine, to be exact.

Site Design

It’s tough in this information age to fully understand the demographic from where your audience will be reaching you, but I anticipated that it would be accessed not only using a wide variety of devices but also from a wide variety of places as well. In the early stages of this process, I channeled most thought into desktop visualization. Only recently has the focus switched to optimize for small screens, such as smartphones and tablets.

During the initial developmental phase, I tried to not look at other friends’ and colleagues’ personal websites as sources of inspiration to prevent their influencing the design standard of what I was going to achieve. I didn’t want the same look and feel as other websites, as I wanted to avoid the current trends and fads. The key was to make it personal and reflect my personality and my passion that keep me focused, allowing me to communicate who I am to the world.  After about a year of being published [live], I have asked for advice from peers and friends for suggestions for improvement while not losing sight of the site’s foundational concept design.

Coding

The simplistic benefit of using such a platform as Squarespace is that they take the hard work of coding a website out of the equation for users like me. Gone are the days of an armature such as me registering for a college course on website programming to learn about HTML, JavaScript, CSS, C++ to get words to appear below a picture on the great and mystical internet. Don’t worry; drag-and-drop is now the order of the day, for the ease and convenience of making a fine and tasteful Site. But as you may have already guessed from the previous statement on templates, I do like to do things at times the hard way or just can’t stand for things to not be the way I want.  So like “Turning” I did need to learn a bit about code-breaking to play with CSS and manipulate the Site to do what I wanted. Most of which was aided by the educational assistance of YouTube and Google search bar “How do I…. (insert word)… in Squarespace”.  Don’t be scared to have fun and try some Custom Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) out on your own site, you may be surprised how easy it can be.

Colour Palette

At the onset of development, I didn’t give much thought to the colours. My knowledge of website creation was extremely limited at that time, and let’s be honest who really cares about what colour the footer background is. As I began to dive deeper into the creation of the Site, and the global pandemic of 2020-2022 rendered me to stay at home longer, I relented to the fact that it is just as important as the words written on the page. Yet I have found it is also like trying to pick paint chip colours for the main floor of your home.  I experimented a bit with a few colour schemes and in the end after letting the paint dry settled with what I think is a classy and distinguished pallet as follows;

Photography

Jay Maisel said “the best camera is the one you have with you” and this defiantly applies to a lot of the technology I use. Most of the photos on the Site have been taken by me either using a Canon A300 or whichever iPhone was in my possession at the time of production or publication. Some additional photos have come from Envato Elements (Tuts+), the Squarespace gallery, or with the kind and humbled permission of some talented friends who are credited for their professional and amateur work.

Typography

As you may have noted, I am slightly obsessed with font styles in design and penmanship. Perhaps one day I may be the designer of a typeset, used around the world, you can guarantee it will be featured here. However, until that happens, I am content to use four of my favorites which are classic and underrated in my opinion. Each can be found in the virtual halls of the Google Web Font library or Adobe Fonts.

• The header is set in Ratio Modern SC and was originally (Ratio) designed in 1923. It was the first to bring a serif typeface to mass publishing of headers and magazine faces. This modern typeset was produced by Kevin King and Patrick Griffin of Canada Type showcases the traditional serif font tails with a modern approach.

• The Body text font for paragraphs uses Baskerville URW. I have always admired, and regularly use this charming serif typeset in many correspondence documents. Designed originally by John Baskerville in 1757, it has a distinct contrast between thick and thin strokes, combined with vertical positions of the axis resulting in clear legibility. Other characteristics are the characteristic swash tail used on the uppercase letter Q and the cursive serifs in Oblique.

• We can’t forget the buttons that operatically appear and like portals teleport you to other areas of the Site and beyond. I wanted to continue with that vintage classy appeal and went with Freight-big Pro Italic for this typeset. This may come as a surprise but it’s a new font created in 2005 by Joshua Darden and has been expanded upon several times ever since. It’s known for its historical innovation and seems to be gaining popularity in its style and form. 

• Sometimes we need to change it up a bit for visual appearance. One additional typeset makes a regular appearance throughout the Site. Moret italic is a serif typeset designed by Jamie Chang of The Northern Block in 2019. It is inspired by twentieth-century European sign painters and features faired stroke ends with a calligraphic touch. I dare say that no one should be shocked that I selected another vintage-looking typeset.

Size can be important to some, and thus I shall include it for those who relish in such things. Header fonts range between 1.5rem, and 4.0rem, with a weight of 400 and line-heights of 1.2em to ensure they are bold and easy to see. Body fonts have been set to range between 0.9rem at a min, and 1.5rem at max, with a weight of 400 and a line-heights of 1.5em. This ensures an optimal line length of between 60 and 80 characters.

These are the primary typesets used, but as full disclosure to all who have read so this far, there may be others that will make guest appearances for ascetics or because or my I just wanted to make you crazy trying to figure out what typeset that one sentence appears as.

Page Headers

All page headers throughout the Site, have a graphic headliner, except those that don’t. Why might you ask did I choose this as part of the layout? Because as much as I know deep down, I am not a photographer, I do own a camera and have an iPhone, which results in my thinking that I take amazing pictures.  It also gives me another veneer to show off my personal side and get rid of some “whitespace” on the Site.  There is also the premise that if you see an epically cool picture, maybe you will read the not so epic text below it. I hope that over time all the header photos will be my own and there will be no need to use stock images to cultivate the essence of a particular page.  At the current count, I need to change out about six such images throughout the Site.

Illustrations

Several illustrations appear on the Site, notably in the section related to my extreme interest in the science of Heraldry. You can count on the copywriter for such illustrations are the property of the artists or craftsperson it refers to and is being used here with the full consent of the said individual. For illustrations of my Armorial Bearings of any configuration found on the Site, this rests solely with me as the owner.

The digital illustrations found here I have created using Adobe Indesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator using a Wacom Graphic Tablet, and Stylus. I also find it fun to pull out the ever-faithful pen, pencil, and paint now and then to add some real personal touches after being formatted digitally for display. If in doubt about where an image came from, or how it was made, feel free to ask, and I’ll be happy to help clarify.

Comments

At this time, there are limited points where comments have been turned on within this Site. Not because I don’t care what people have to say or that I think feedback/options might be harsh at times, although there might be a little bit of truth nestled in there that needs to be unpacked. Rather as the Site is still in its infancy, I don’t anticipate a huge interactive engagement from readers.  Comments have been turned on for journal posts to solicit engagement if people so choose, as well as periodically they appear in “a dose of inspirational” pictures depending on what is posted.  There is no plan for a page to be developed to leave testimonials, comments, or feedback on the overall Site, which is what Facebook is for.

Now if your chief comment about my site is that it looks out of sort on your browser [and there is no notice that maintenance is being conducted on the homepage] then I have a sneaking suspicion you’re using an out-of-date browser such as Internet Explorer that does not support updated web standards. (Oh, why do you inflict pain upon yourself by using such a mundane thing?) My recommendation is that you upgrade to a competent browser that is supported in the fast-paced world technological world. However, if you have already done that, and you’re using a compliance browser, and still having trouble viewing this Site, well, it might not be your fault then, please let me know, so “we” can get it restored to good working order.

A Final Word

If you have made it this far into the page, and are now reading this paragraph, you are of a caliber unto yourself. My only rational thought on this is that you are hopefully a creative mind like myself who wants to set them apart on the World Wide Web and liked my style to emulate parts of it. Alternatively, you might be so bored having stumbled on this page (good job finding it), but you invested too much time so far that you just want to see it through to the end, or you’re my mom, and you read everything that I post.  In any case, I tip my hat to you and say thank you for making it to the end!