It’s been a while since I’ve redid my website. Every time I do so, I try to approach it in a new manner that lets me learn something new about web design. For the past year or so, I’ve been using iWeb, Apple’s web design software that’s real easy to use. In less than 10 minutes, you could have a (somewhat) professional looking website. One of the greatest features is that you can drag-and-drop items into image holders, and then drag them anywhere, without having to worry too much about coordinates or width of the screen, or things like that. Another thing is that you can switch from one design to another with relative ease.

But iWeb is really good if you want a clean and simple site and are happy with their designs. For a while, I was fine with using it for my own site, but I got a bit annoyed at the blogging system. In iWeb, whenever you start a new entry, you have to delete the template and resize everything to fit your needs. Instead of using an entry you used before, or letting you create your own template, you have to start with theirs every single time. It’s not that much work, but it’s unnecessary work, and that’s the worst.

So, I was searching for minimalist web designs, and came across something called Expression Engine, which is a content management system (CMS). EE seems to be a happy marriage for people who don’t want to deal too much with code but are given the chance to play with it if they want. The EE Core is free to download and use, which is a bonus. It is a bit of a pain to set up (for me - I have to thank my friend, Hans, for dealing with it). EE includes templates that are also free to use, and if you are happy with them, you can start on your site right away. Their system works a little bit like BlackBoard, where basically you just put in data, and it will organize it for you. For the slightly more adventure, you can play with their code, provided you know something about CSS and PHP (and Javascript and HTML, of course).

I started out with their Butterfly Template, but as you can see, it bears no resemblance to it any more. I have to say that I am no expert at this, and I learn a lot from examples I see online.

What I found particularly interesting to think about is the evolution of web design over the years. HTML is relatively linear (nested would be a more accurate term), but once you start playing with databases, you have to completely rethink your logic to website design. CMS bumps it to another level, where you website becomes modular, such that you can reconfigure your website’s structure, and not just content, which is pretty amazing if you think about it.