Happy humpiest of hump days! Today has turned into Christmas in April for me, holy smokes. I am beyond elated to welcome you to my brand-spankin’, sparkly new website! It has been a long time comin’, but totally worth the patience and effort.
I got a bit teary-eyed on my way to work this morning as I took a few deep breaths and reflected on the work that went into this, not just in the past few weeks, but in the past few years as I’ve grown my business. I’m so proud of this, and so grateful for all of the people who have helped me and been my cheerleaders along the way. You’re my heroes.
I actually have three *big announcements* to make today!
1. New website, obvs.
2. My work is featured today on 100 Layer Cake (Read my blog post about that!)
3. I’m leaving my events job at the UW to pursue photography full time. Aaaahhh!! After over seven-and-a-half years, May 2nd is my last day, and I’m so excited for this adventure. You’ll hear more about that in the coming days, too. This post is now officially dedicated to my new website baby! 🙂
This journey actually began last March when I met with super-awesome graphic designer Kristin McCleerey, a friend from college, to talk about doing some design work for me. I knew I wanted new logos and branding tools to go along with a new site. Kristin and I met in person to discuss my goals and things that I want my new look to represent, and after several weeks of she and I both messing around with designs (try this, try that, I like this, not that), I fell in love with these creations:
Then summertime got a bit full (of photography, thankfully!) and the search for a web designer kind of went on hold. I did have my “shoe sib” (we wear the same size shoes haha) Brian Reyes help me mock up a temporary site, which I had in effect from the end of May until, well, this morning. (And for that I’m grateful – thanks, B!) Once summer settled, Kristin mocked up some beautiful designs for a website that she would then send to whatever designer I chose. She did a sensational job. Kristin has some great connections for talented web designers, and I ended up going with my new email best friend (did you know Gmail messages max out at 100 conversations in a thread??), Dmitriy Agadzhanov, after seeing some of his other design work that fit with the look and feel I wanted. He was able to start work immediately (just a few weeks ago), and by the first week had a beautiful start based on Kristin’s mockup.
The past several days have consisted of very late nights/early mornings, revisions, tons of emails, content loading, me messing up code and Dmitriy graciously fixing it (thanks, dude), and simply getting more and more excited each day.
THANK YOU, KRISTIN AND DIMITRIY, for all of your hard work and dedication to helping me get exactly what I envisioned and for meeting my deadline. Not to mention, for being super responsive, helpful, creative, fun, and open to my ideas! It was an absolute pleasure working with you.
Things I want you to notice about my website!
1. First of all, my site is responsive, so that means it will scale to fit your browser window. Don’t forget to scroll down to make sure you see everything. 🙂 It’s also made so that it will work well on mobile devices and tablets, something I’m super stoked about.
Here’s how it looks on my iPad and iPhone:
2. Homepage: I love the large slideshow and how you can click an image to get directly to one of my portfolio galleries. Beneath the slideshow you’ll also notice feature images, which connect you directly to a blog post. Below that you’ll see a live feed of my Instagram and Twitter accounts. The entire site is searchable, and you can find links to all of my social media pages (some of which I need to get started on!). You can even sign up for my newsletter, woot woot!
3. Meet TB: I had so much fun working with Dmitriy to design this page. (This is where I messed up the code and he saved me, haha.) If you want to learn more about me, just hover (or click, if you’re on mobile) the thumbnails and you’ll see some explanations! I’m excited about the map feature, too! I love to travel, and I hope that I’ll be able to do it even more through my photography. (Still need to tweak this feature a bit to add more info, but come back and visit in a week to check it out some more!)
4. Portfolio: Love, love-love, love, love. I had misunderstood some of the original design, so when I asked Dmitriy to fix the way my portfolio worked I think I surprised him – but then he and Kristin came up with what you see now and I could stare at it all day, haha! I appreciate that the slideshow runs on auto, but if you want to click through images yourself, you certainly can, and you can scroll through the thumbnails at the bottom.
5. Say Hey, Investment, and He Said She Said: Pretty self explanatory, no real bells and whistles to show you here. But I like the cleanliness and simplicity of these three pages.
6. Blog: Hooray, a blog style that doesn’t drive me crazy! I was getting tired of my old one, but I love this. You can easily access my social media, you can search through the drop-down categories menu, you can comment and share with friends, you can hover over photos and pin them…it’s just so much more functional than what I had before, and I can’t wait to post more here!
Below is a shiny new comments box – leave it some love! Let me know what you think of the site. See any glitches? See something you love? Anything other information you’d like to see from me on here? I’d love to hear your thoughts! You can email me, too, if you want – tb@tarabrownphotography.com.
Thanks so much for taking the time to check out  my new website! I hope you’ll visit often. Merry Christmas in April! 😉
