The Prophecy of Somnol April 8, 2020

somnolescent.net‘s redesign is finally done. About a week and a half to build it, 37 spooky furry drawings from Caby, one new button from borb, two new fake ads in rotation, a programming language partially learned, and an API partially learned. Fuckin’ sweet.

I’m about to go take the rest of the day to goof around and play vidya, but I might as well write a bit about it before then. I’m really satisfied with how this came out. Frankly, came together better than anticipated. Caby contributed the original sketch, and I kept to that as much as possible. There was initially some concern if we were gonna be able to fit the Somnolians page in the same layout as the rest of the site, but dropping the nav thanks to flexbox made that feasible.

Maybe I’m inclined to downplay my bit in making the entire thing come together, but I think this really came alive as soon as Caby’s art got all over it. I’ve refreshed that home page several dozen times just looking at all the lads in the corner, even though I’ve seen them all already. God, I love it. Just adorable. Here’s a shot from back when I was still using majority placeholder assets:

In a day or two, I’ll have something up on the group blog about all the redesigns the top-level Somnol site has had leading up to this, but for now? I’m kinda done with all my truly big, urgent projects. Springtime has accompanied a major mood boost for both me and Caby, and with mood boosts come confidence boosts. I’m feeling writing, I’m feeling music, I’m feeling fun.

I left my writing unceremoniously up in the air at the end of last year, and in that time, I’ve come around on it. My ultimate goal is to be writing every day, but smaller stuff that builds up with time. Not necessarily all high art or finished work, I mean sketches and drafts. That’s another thing I’ve been neglecting: my work never has much of an “editing” phase to it. I just kinda write it and it happens. Think I’d be much happier with whatever comes out if I start doing it in drafts and building on, giving things time to incubate.

At this point, it’s all experimentation; don’t be surprised if I start posting snippets and cut out bits from whatever I’m working on here. That’s why I started the Scratchpad and that’s what I want it to continue being: a patchwork of my daily goings-on.

As for somnolescent.net, all the scripts are set up to make adding new ads and banners a piece of cake, really. I’d still like to add in date-checking to the banner script (for automatic seasonal stuff), but right now, I’m totally satisfied with it. Feel free to take out an ad if you so desire.

Tags: somnolescent.net, Web Design,