A few weeks before Bridget’s Big Debut, I registered bridgetwarren.com. Anna and I were keeping the name a secret, so I felt pretty clever. I put up a static page and taught myself BlueprintCSS as an exercise in making a simple page for her site. It was fun, but I knew a single .html page wouldn’t last long as her website.
Fifteen days after she was born, I installed Chyrp, a lightweight blogging engine that gives a bit more oomph than Tumblr, but doesn’t aspire to be a powerful CMS. An hour or two of tweaking and designing, installing a few “feathers” and modules, I had a pretty much perfect site with some “static” pages, an RSS feed, and the ability to post new stuff on a whim.
To be honest, I enjoy posting more on Chyrp’s system than Expression Engine. There’s something to be said about an application that does just a few things very well. The aesthetics and usability of a tool that’s designed for one task are always going to be better than a multi-use tool.
I may or may not keep using Chyrp. So far, the Bridget site has been a fun little area to make little micro-experiments, so for now I’ll keep using it as that. I’ve been pleased with the results so far.
Be Good Not Bad is all about really good web design, based on the utmost respect for web standards, accessibility and respect for the user. Based in Denver, Colorado, Be Good Not Bad is run by Brian Warren, freelance designer, blogger, homebrewer and coffee nut.
Of course. I wouldn’t hesitate to admit I enjoy fiddling with Bridget’s site, due to the subject matter. It’s a pretty rewarding topic. :D
§ By Brian Warren at 4:08am on March 02 2008