Metaphorlio: New Personal Portfolio Site Based on Metaphor
After months of ruminating about what my new site structure should be, I finally decided on the Cafe/Studio/Stage metaphor I’ve often discussed in my writings and talks.
Café
is a metaphor for the social spaces where I speak, write, converse, and think out loud.
On this page I have links to this blog space and my Medium, my Twitter, personal YouTube (as opposed to Historyteachers), LinkedIN (ugh), my Google Plus and main G+ communities (RemixED, Image is Everything, Make du Jour, Cloud is Our Campfire on crowdsourced creativity, and New Literacies). There are also links to my Diigo (which I rarely use since G+), Storify, and my old course blog from Theory of Knowledge (many great resources and student examples there).
In the dropdown menu there is a gallery of my main influences, starting with McLuhan.
That gallery is nicked from my old site, and perhaps I need to rethink it, as it contains mostly white men and only one woman! But truly, these people have greatly influenced my professional thinking (not necessarily my artistic thinking, like Anais Nin).
Studio
is a metaphor for my various independent and collaborative creative projects, including my graphic illustrations and sketch services
Here I was free to share the (often whimsical) things I create for personal and professional reasons. There are links to all my Tumblr blogs, as well as Pinterest, Thinglink, and Instagram. I’ve also included links to the Instagram on which I have started selling my wardrobe (@Burvallhalla) and my Society6 shop, to which I am slowly but consistently uploading art for sale.
There’s a link that takes the viewer to my Graffikon site, in case someone wants to hire me for sketching an event.
Finally, the gallery is really a showcase of my most recent projects, or links to the comprehensive lists I have on this blog.
The drop down menu includes a link to a page devoted to the History for Music Lovers project, with an archive of some of the press we received when active.
Stage
is a metaphor for my more formal sharing, particularly in the form of keynotes and workshops
The Stage page hosts a gallery with links to my Slideshare and a variety of web presentations and recorded video of keynotes.
The drop down menu includes a “What’s Next” and “What Has Been” to list all the events I have or will be doing (keynotes, presentations, workshops, etc.).
The “Hire Me To Speak” page describes my style and offerings, and includes a pdf doc with all the detailed descriptions.
Finally, the “Recommendations” page shares several blurbs about me and my work from very cool people with whom I’ve had the privilege to work.
Under the “About” page I have more testimonials, a list of professional highlights, and an attempt to describe myself and what I do (though if you read this and this you will see it is something I struggle with).
ONE ISSUE:
I usually make all the hyperlinks “open in new window” but soon realized that when viewing in Mobile, you could not see or access the “go to link”. As a result, I ended up changing things so on mobile the viewer is taken directly to the link from the gallery (which means I had to change to “open in same window”). Hopefully that’s OK for people.
I enjoyed creating this and purging some old things, but it was tedious. I was just happy everything I do is in the same colour palette.
I wonder if anyone else has a personal web site based on metaphor? If you do, please share.