… of the old web design.

Kind of. It’s really just a tweaked version of the current design, with the addition of some prettier colours, top navigation, the new logo, and some moved posts to ensure better discovery of the old vs next year’s new stuff. I’ve also added a search box/explanation about Puppets in Melbourne stuff going to School of Puppetry.

It occured to me a few moments ago that maybe I should stop adding these explanations all over the site. People come here looking for the old stuff, see the site’s changed, bounce to another page, still can’t see it, and then leave. I very rarely see anyone following the explanations/links to SOP, whereas I often seen SOP visitors head here to find old content - and then, the link goes directly to the old FAQ page anyway, so they don’t see the rest of the PIM site. For the moment I’m leaving the explanations in, but I think I’ll taper off those over time. The thing is that if people don’t see the old tutorials here, they’ll simply leave anyway; and if they search for whatever they’re looking for, they’ll always just come across SOP anyway since that content is exactly what they’re looking for and just as easily found.

The good news is that fixing up the design also means I can go back and fill a few holes that I’d been intending to get around to but never did. For instance, I wanted to add a little ‘learn more about shadow puppetry‘ section to the site, so that potential/customers can see just how simple shadow puppets can be to use. I’ve fixed up a thing or two, including spending 4 days uploading a 30min shadow puppet tutorial. From here, I’ll be adding an updated version of my shadow puppet screen tutorial, using something I invented for my trip to the US in 2009. I’ll also be adding posts about puppets I used to sell but never got around to showcase on the site.

And lastly, I’ll be making improvements to the blog page itself, as there are a number of things on the current design that have been bugging me. Speaking of bugs… I upgraded the blog software at the start of the week, and unfortunately the old template on the new version means the blog commenting currently doesn’t work. I’ll be fixing that too. And I’ll be giving some style to individual categories - such as the festival diaries, etc - to help make them stand out.

Just in case you think it’s all admin: Monday marked the day I received a huge package full of plastic sheets to test out for shadow puppets. I cut off a small piece and have been playing with it, and I’m happy to say I have a supplier that’s not only cheap, but providing the perfect material. And in the same city as me! I’ll post more on that in the future, once I’ve actually sat down and made something with it.

In the meantime, you’ll see the new design being added to the site bit-by-bit. I could have done it all at once, but as I was moving a few things around I thought it was just easier to press the publish button as soon as I finished a page/template. You can currently only see it on the home page. And yes, I do hope this is the last time I change the design. I think I’ve done it all of 4 or 5 times over the past 5 or so years.