Help Me Feng Shui My S(h)ite!
Alright peoples, I’m back! I have so much to write about, it’s ridiculous, but not yet. At the moment I’m deeply involved in re-evaluating and implementing some changes to my website, and my whole ‘public presentation’ approach in general. The way I’m imagining this in my mind is like a powerful Feng Shui treatment for my virtual and social realm(s). This goes well beyond my website or even my public life, but we’ll stick to the online stuff for now.
Parallel to this, I’m getting big into some great concepts, like the ‘shared value community‘ and ‘mutually inspired abundance‘ (and a bunch of other, related ideas) that my esteemed friend and collegue Tim has been developing and fostering over at his site. So with that in mind, I would like to open up my current Web Feng Shui™ process to the shared value community that is you, my valued readers/listeners/friends.
Basically, like most people, I’m not too good at being objective about myself, so I can really use, and sincerely appreciate, any feedback or ideas you can throw at me — constructive criticism most of all. Even if you think I, my website and everything I have ever created are perfect, I don’t care. That just means you’re a) wrong, b) full of shit (in a nice way of course — and thanks), c) not thinking about it or don’t care, or d) are too easygoing and could use the ‘critiquing’ practice anyway.
Whatever the case, I guarantee that, for every one of you, there has to be at least one thing about this website (or the broader reaches of my omnipresence) that you don’t like, that you think is missing, that you think could be improved in some way, that you want to see/hear more of, or that you think should be scrapped altogether. I want to hear all of it (not song requests or that kind of thing, but you know what I mean). Even if you just have some random interesting idea pop into your head that I may not have thought about, please, send it my way. Share it in the comments here or email me (brooke dot snt at gmail dot com). I’ll be adding ideas of my own in the comments here as well, so you’ll get a better idea of what I’m actually looking for, and it will be a collaborative, ongoing, back-and-forth exchange. And should you ever need creative input from me about your own thing, please ask. We’re all about mutual benefit around here.
I will leave it at that for now, except to say, thanks in advance and I look forward to your comments! If you don’t comment, I’ll assume that means you agree with what I’m thinking right now — that the color scheme really needs to be changed to a dull, mustard yellow, with some dark purple, maybe some dark green… definitely neon orange text… Damn! This is going to look soooo good!!! Oh, and ALL CAPS and no spacing between paragraphs — everywhere! — not just in the comments like it is right now.
(Actually I’m not so much looking to totally redesign the site, visually. I’m thinking more along the lines of conceptual ideas, content/features, branding/marketing, and tweaks to the site to make it a more user-friendly, interactive and awesome place to hang out. I do intend to fix that problem with the comments being in all caps, by the way. Anyone know the CSS involved there?).
PS: coming up next: My Mad Skillz Inventory (Why I’m Kind of a Big Deal). Oh… it is going to be good.
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26 Responses to “Help Me Feng Shui My S(h)ite!”
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Okay. ONe idea I’ve been toying with (and thank you Tim for the fresh perspectives here) is to make not just an ‘album’, but to create an actual imaginary ‘realm’ in which songs can grow and live and wander and play. I like the idea of a haunted forest. ‘Lullaby’ seems a good term to describe my songs, so I put those together and the ‘Lullaby Forest’ has been my working idea so far.
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Now… I’m not set on that, because I’m also big into this idea that life is a musical, a theatrical performance, and this website has more of a ‘theater’ feel… (also a slightly circus-y feel). And I dig that. Plus, within that ‘realm’ I could still put on a performance (an album) that takes place in a haunted forest, but then the next one could be something entirely different. I don’t know… I’m torn.
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So both ideas are on the table, and I’m open to even more. But you see basically what I’m looking for is some kind of loose ‘theme’ (you could also call it a ‘brand’, from a marketing perspective, but I’m thinking more artistically here. although there’s no contradiction as far as I’m concerned).
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Anyway, I’ll be back.
Hey… Theaters are often haunted too. There definitely have to be some ghosts involved. What about ‘Supernatural Theater’? All kinds of crazy shit can happen in a Supernatural Theater. Maybe it’s a theater in which you become possessed by the spirit of the character you’re playing. I don’t know how that would even come into play, I’m just brain-vomiting. Feel free to join me!
The theater thing would also be the perfect atmosphere to resurrect my experimental film work that’s been in hibernation ever since I dropped out of art school a few years ago.
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There are collaborative possibilities waiting to happen here too. musicians, writers, film-makers, artists, interactive audiences, all inter-mingling with our respective mad skillz… and what better place for all that to thrive than in a cool old haunted theater?
Brooke,
I think the website would be better if it looked more “Montana-ish” or more like your artwork.
Will try to email ideas tomorrow!
Heya Ted! Good to see you here.
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Thanks for the thoughts. I would agree with the Montana thing, except I don’t really want to limit myself to a local demographic, in fact I think most of my ‘demographic’ lies elsewhere. Though I suppose my love for Montana is an important aspect of who I am, so I should incorporate that somehow into things.. I’ll have to think on that.
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As for being more like my artwork, I don’t think it’s unlike it… is it??? It actually technically is my artwork, seeing as I drew/designed it. Does it seem out of keeping with my art/music/style? if so, how so?
The only thing about the theater idea is that I don’t really know anything about theater life or acting, the thespian lifestyle or any of that jazz… it’s not a part of my experiential reality (not that I can’t read about it and get more into it, but that seems forced and still not the same as experience) — but — as a metaphor, it expresses an important core belief about *LIFE* that I’m trying more and more to live by.
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Just thinking out loud…
I think, for one thing, that blogs wind up being like apartments, where guests are afraid they’ll wear out their welcome, and besides that, when we do contribute, we’re contributing in a less-visible place. It would be nice if there were some sort of “common area”, where we can step out of our apartments and just be there, and if no one’s in the common area, fine, but if someone is, that’s who we can interact with, and it’s not someone’s “territory”.
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Forums are ok, but they’re kind of an old and burnt-out idea. I’ve tried setting up a multi-user blog, as you know, but the results were disastrous, as you know.
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“Supernatural things” has always sounded to me like it would be a cool name for a record label or production company. If “theater” is the new name, that would be just as good.
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The hardest thing about setting anything up is anticipating how *you* are going to change.
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test~
This is the end of part one of my comment. That doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a part two; a thing can have just one part, can’t it?
Great points Keith - the apartment thing, I totally know what you mean. Forums - yeah, they don’t seem to work too well in my experience. There has to be a better way…
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The record label idea intrigues me… I don’t necessarily ever want to run a record label, nor do I necessarily even want to get signed to a record label… but it could be useful to be associated with the ‘idea’ of a record label - a pseudo-record label perhaps, that serves only certain useful functions - like to act as a shared ‘brand’ and mutual hype alliance framework.
I think your site could improve if you posted song ideas, lyrics, maybe if only in a members-only area; the elite supernatural.
I support the Maddox-style layout/fonts/colors/philosophy, but I don’t know if it’s you. You’re bright, and find myself focusing on the red bursts at the top from fear of diving into an abyss.
It’s Lee!
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Yes, you are onto something I’ve been considering… sharing unfinished work. I’m thinking of posting clips from improvitape (or just recording) sessions — the raw but beautiful bits that I man never capture in future, more refined versions of the songs that those bits turn into. lyrics and ideas too, yes, totally. It scares the bejesus out of me to reveal anything unfinished and imperfect, but yes, totally.
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The abyss. I know. Someone sent me to this site here to watch this girl’s video. I absolutely love the video & song (go see!), but the site has that abyss feel too, and it makes me uncomfortable. my own site doesn’t make me uncomfortable in that way, but maybe only because it’s my own crib and I made it. I don’t want to make people uncomfortable.
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Maybe I could use this existing design for something else (it’s too awesome to throw in the trash, lets be honest) - though I don’t know what… but start fresh with a design/environment that’s a little more bright, welcoming (and readable) for my fireside journal / conversation space, which is what I want this to be more of. we’ll see…
Brooke,
I guess by Montana-ish, I was thinking mountians. Do you live in the mountians? It seems related to you somehow.
The black and the orange seems kind of cool though too, but more New Englandish and Holloweeney. But I am thinking the black makes it seem kind of underground. You have an excellent sense of color and design,The black and red and blue works, but I am thinking symbolically, you are emerging from undergrond and ascending. You were cooking up all these schemes underground and now you are boldly emerging into the light.
Just a thought. Brainstorming.
The starburst thingys at the top look kind of like Stalagtites. plus the upper most ones are in the forground, the lower ones are in back, so it creates this space in the expanse of black. That’s why it seems like a cave.
I am thinking a theater of the Gods wold be on a mountian, Like Olympus. I am thinking of your same sense of design with your use of warm and contrasting cool colors but with more blue.
It is like a cave! It’s the BATcave (BAT = my initials).
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You make an important point about the symbolic element. Attached as I might be to my current design, it not only has inherent usability flaws (for readers and for me)… it’s also symbolically unfitting to what I want to become.
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I’m trying to make a shift — in myself, in my personal life, not just in my public presentation (it’s all interconnected, of course) — from being this dark, quiet, secretive (I’ve spun this as ‘mysterious’), underground, behind-the-scenes sort of person, hiding from the world, avoiding the spotlight (despite secretly craving it)… to, as you say, “ascending … boldly emerging into the light.”
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I could always just put this design up for adoption like I did with this other one I made awhile back that I couldn’t stand to see just tossed away.
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I like jeremy puma’s theme a bit actually - certain aspects of it. It’s too blue for me though (I want to express more warmth), and something else is missing. I also want something I can put ads on and not have it look too crappy. Tim’s site handles ads well, as an example. I don’t know if I have it in me to go that plain, though. : )
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Mountains… Yes, I live at the foot of the elkhorn mountains. Originally I was supposed to move into this log cabin on my friends’ property up in the mountains/woods not far from here, but it didn’t pan out. You might have read about that here at some point. I do loves me some mountains.
Brooke,
What do you think of this color scheme? I was kind of imagining this mountain the way you would paint it. Mayne I am way off dunno…
http://www.coldfusionvideo.com/goodies/jcards/25-026.jpg
I dig the bright-blueness of the sky in that image. The mountain is a little too full of jagged rocks, and a little too hyper-realistic from what I’m going for, but I thank you for shooting ideas at me. Keep em coming!
Okay, I am great at original thoughts and sometimes not so helpful with the nitty-gritty. However, as much as I honestly love red, white, and black with muted blues and other alternate hues here and there, I think variation within similar themes is a definite plus, if you really want to change the colors. I always love the definite-ness of red, white, and black for bold statements though.
As to Feng Shui, however, I think many people don’t fully understand the basic priciples behind its essential message. Flowing cyclically is one of the most primary objectives of Feng Shui, and while your site is terrifically well-organized and contains a map, I think it would be really amazing if you could somehow create a progression of your pages from one to another without every reaching a dead end. In other words, you could link your pages in a kind of daisy chain that brings your cybernetic life full circle (literally), but then I would create intermediate paths which cut across the circle and branched out to related parts in only one direction.
The overall map would be like a tree with a circle around it. The main trunk of the tree would contain the two ends of the loop and a third, more direct path. This central path through the site would branch out (as your site does now) but would intentially lead from a linear progression of ideas at last to a point on the outer circle which would bring you back to the home page at the end. This way a person would feel like they were taking any one of many circuits through the site, but the journey would always end where it started (provided that the links were intimately connected enough to make the reader push on until they finished the full circuit).
This is just a tossed off thought, but heck, if it is not far too difficult then it might be well worth it. Hopefully each page could be kept simple so that only one, two, or three links existed on them (not including the tree shaped site map which could be included on some or all pages).
What I can’t stand is pages which have so many links I feel like I am missing something no matter what I choose. If you use my idea you could actually make it possible for a person to know they had completed the whole site. It is like a choose-your-own-adventure book, only better because it invites you to keep coming back in!
-Just a thought!
Post Scriptum:
I like the Lullaby Forest idea, and I think cinematic principles could be worked into it…but the symbolism of caves is unbearably beautiful to me. I have always loved them, so I am fairly biased on the subject. What about something like in the story of Aladdin where he goes into a cave (maybe it could be in the mountains) and finds a beautiful forest filled with jewels (and lamps’n’stuff). It is all variously haunted and cursed, but as long as you are there it is safe and beautiful and all equally impossible to believe. I always thought there was really interesting scenery in that tale…Coldfusionvideo’s colors were great! Kinda faded technicolor!
My improvement would be on the guitararchive. Would love to have the mp3 to your actual cover and not of the original song. Your “stray cat strut” and “little red riding hood” covers are an improve on the originals and I never want to hear them again on another version that’s not yours.
@ ROB:
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“The definiteness of red, black and white”…
Totally, but I’d add blue, cuz I like it and cuz I don’t want to be confused with the white stripes.
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I’m actually digging the color scheme and simple elegance of my tumblr blog.
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“Feng Shui… flowing cyclically”…
Interesting. What you’re saying I should do with my site oddly parallels what I want to do with my album — which is to tie together and sometimes overlap songs by way of various recurring sound-elements that rise and fall (like gusts of wind), weave in, around and underground (like the flow of a brook) or very gradually grow/build over the span of the album (like trees). Maybe even give it seasons… I’m giving too much away.
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I’m unsure exactly what you’re envisioning as far as the site-structure, but I’ll email you about it.
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I’m with you on the link-overload issue. I try to keep links to a minimum and not too essential to the plot.
@ MOKA: Thanks! Actually, that and other things along those lines are already in the works.
My two pennies worth…
1st penny> I can’t read the $@&) characters in the NAME and MAIL text fields of the DISCUSS form…ultra-light-near-invisible-blue on pale-ghastly-yellow! Cm’on grrrrrlfriend, wassup with dat?
2nd penny> well, what is it really that you’re trying to achieve in this re-design slash tweak? “begin with the end in mind”…not always helpful, but can really keep you focused on what you’re trying to achieve and therefore know when you’re making progress towards a goal as opposed to randomly changing stuff just because you can.
So, WHAT are you trying to achieve?
@ Emmanuel:
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“I can’t read the $@&) characters in the NAME and MAIL text fields of the DISCUSS form… ultra-light, near-invisible blue on pale, ghastly yellow!…”
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What??? No it’s not. it’s blue text on black for me, always. But anyway I’m scrapping this theme soon. It’s been giving me too many little annoying problems on my end for too long, aside from any visible problems on the front end.
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“WHAT are you trying to achieve?”
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That is an excellent question. I think I’ll make that its own post soon.
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Thanks for the pennies!
stop controlling us! OH
IT MAY BE THE LCD MONITOR, BUT SITES LIKE YOURS BURN INTO MY RETINA. CORPUS ALIENUM! DEFINITION: THE CONTRAST WITH A BLACK BG AND BRIGHT TEXT IS REALLY BAD. I HAVE DISABLED PAGE COLORS FOR THIS SITE. EVEN THEN MY EYES FEAR THE CONTRAST HELL I EXPERIENCED WHEN I VIEWED ANOTHER SITE AFTER THIS ONE. IT IS INCREDIBLY UNPLEASANT. MAYBE I’M SENSITIVE. OR LCDS ARE VERY CONTRAST SENSITIVE. IT REALLY BURNS.
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RANDOM, FAIRLY INFREQUENT VISITOR
AND YEAH, BE CONSISTENT WITH PADDING. I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT THE TEXT IS TOO CLOSE TO THE IMAGES. IT SHOULD BE EQUALLY SPACED AS PARAGRAPHS. TRY IT AND SEE IF YOU AGREE.
Yeah, I forget that I turn the contrast all the way down on my monitor for a reason. And my fondness for the black background has steadily been on the decline for some time. Anyway, this theme is on the way out. I have a friend helping me on a new one, so in the meantime just bear with me!