A web site is never finished. There's just pauses between redesigns.

When I first made an entry as a publisher on the internet, it was as a hobbiest. The focus was on sharing my stories and illustrations with my close circle of friends and the site really wasn't much to look at. Just a few graphic files plopped onto a server and held together with hyperlinks.

After recieving a notice that my free host would be closing down, I decided to slam some bucks on the table for an actual host and build myself a real site from which I could showcase my works. This new site was divided between my blog and my personal artistic endeavours.

After six months, came the first redesign, with a focus on improving visitor usability and streamlining things from my end.

During this time, I - with the assistance of my technically minded friend David - had been working on a number of other websites of growing complexity.

The next redesign was a major overhaul of the entire structure and workings of the site and a chance to flex some of my new programming and database skills. Updates were now done through a content management system with all the content being indexed or stored in a database, greatly reducing the amount of time required to update the site. And though the entire guts were yanked out and put back together again, the big change to the site would end up being the focus on my entrepeneurial offerings.

Turning the focus on my professional skills helped provide a greater focus and reason for posting to the blog, but also gave the incentive to put an extra effort into the design and presentation of the site.

That was more than a year ago, and probably the longest I've gone without tinkering with the site. Really a testament to how well it's served me. But as the year has past by I've begun to note areas where I need to make a change and areas where I can improve. I've a number of improvements to make and it's definitely become time to seperate the hobby from the business.

And so another redesign is in the works. I've decided to blog openly about the process from beginning to end to help give others an idea of what's involved in rebuilding and redesigning a site and to solicit opinions and critiques along the way. You'll get to see everything from my rough notes and random jottings, the buggy half-attempts and the not so ready for primetime guts of the site. My hope is this will be a useful guide for those who are considering a rejigging of their own site, and give some insight as to how I proceed.