P. Ben May – Words of…Something

Last year I orginally build and launched pbenmay.com. It was part of a CIT project, but I knew it could be so much more. I build a design that was simple and more technical savvy rather than being designed visually well.

When I took a look at it again, it just didn’t fit what I wanted it to do, so I scapped it and started over. The goal of the new site is to promote me, and the work that I have created and plan to do. The best way for me to do that is through visually appealing simplicity.

Everything on the new site is technically one page. The tabs are using JQuery which hides any information that isn’t for the tab selected. I was thrilled with this. The section that isn’t part of the home page is the portfolio. I attempted to place all my work under that tab, but could not make it work to a point it looked good. So I took another tact, I made separate pages for each category. On top of that, I have always disliked having to view a full sized pictured on a new screen (really I’m too lazy to hit back) so I utilized something called light box that brings it up right in front of the page.  I love it.

Now understand that I’m still in the process of adding content and making design changes. It’s a work in progress.

Okay, so I use Twitter all the time. Think of Twitter as a mini blog. People blog every once in a while simply cause it takes quite a bit of thinking. By creating mini blogs you can give simple updates about what you are doing and what you are interested in.

The part that makes Twitter interesting to me is the ability to subscribe to other peoples Twitter, and people being able to subscribe to mine. Say I have a question about blogs and I know there are a couple people that follow my Twitter who are bloggers. I can simply post a question and anywhere from a minute to a couple hours those people have answered my question.

To me it’s not about about just posting what I’m doing. It’s the giant resource it provides. The other day I had a question about the principles of designing a billboard. I posted a question and within minutes a person in Chicago who is a professional billboard designer gave me a link to a 30 PDF on designing billboards.

If you aren’t getting anything out of Twitter then you aren’t using it right. It’s being used by millions of people around the world, and with them as a whole it becomes a resource better then Wikipedia.