v4.wesort.co.uk

v4.wesort.co.uk
November 2017 to September 2025

The fourth version of my site once again built on what preceded it.

It is visually similar as I was largely satisfied with the existing design. Typographically, the font changed to Dante, to match printed materials. Generally type is slightly bigger to improve readability. (Lusitana is a close match to Dante, and was used previously on the website and continues to be used with Google Docs.) I still hadn’t found a good way to incorporate the brand stamps, but hopefully that will come to me in the coming months.

From a technical perspective, the site was still built responsively with a mobile-first approach. However, the way the code is written is more consistent with current web standards. The previous version was somewhat embarrassing to me if I thought of other developers viewing the code. This was my primary motivation in rebuilding the site from scratch. Considering that a third of what I do is design and build websites, I felt this aspect of the site had to be better.

This site was built on my favourite CMS (Content Management System) – chosen for its ease of use, speed, active developer community and portability. Statamic is a flat file CMS which means the entire site is a set of files. This differs from Wordpress, for example, which uses a MySQL database to store settings and content. As everything is stored as files, it fits neatly into my workflow using Git and has a single, tidy automatic backup solution.

The content of the site is more elaborate than I had previously attempted. A richer listing of projects across the about pages shows more of my experience directly with clients. The blog is now more than a scrapbook with written pieces expressing my wider thoughts on a variety of topics. Furthermore, everything in the site is optimised for search engines and social media. Most importantly, now that a CMS is in place I am able to update the site more regularly by focusing on the text and images – compared to previously where changes involved fiddly, technical steps.