Before I built The Pink Crow, I had just one site called Subculture of One. Previously, Subculture of One was just a place where I kept links to all my old gURL.com comics, blogs, social networking sites and a newsletter, but once I started making sites full time, I tried to integrate that part of my work into the new site…. with mixed results.
I kept the old “black and white and red all over” color scheme, and on the front page I mixed in an image of my alter ego off one of my business cards. The site had previously been coded in substandard CSS, and by now I knew better. At one point, I really wanted to show off, so I decided to make the layout, get this, based on the golden ratio and fluid (meaning it expands and contracts with the size of the user’s browser window–very tricky to do right while maintaining control over how things flow on the page).
I used grainy zip-tone and halftone screens to reinforce my comic book roots and made all my social networking sites much more easy to find, with links on each page or in context-sensitive places.
I wanted to build in my own gallery, but I didn’t like the Gallery2.2 script’s heavy reliance on table-based layout. Tired of gutting tables from my previous Rubifruit project, I nixed the the idea completely and linked to my preexisting DeviantArt account instead, which is good because DeviantArt is more socially active than a static on-site gallery and encourages through-traffic, but bad because I have absolutely no control over its layout nor is DeviantArt very “socially aware” (very few widgets that hook into other sites).
I also let go of my customize osCommerce shopping cart that I built way back when for an etsy shop. I figured etsy would offer more through-traffic, and thought it was worth a change, especially since I had made so many friends on etsy already.
A Commercial Approach
I tried to play up my skills as an illustrator and web designer on the new site instead of just promoting my comics, which are no longer the focus of my career. But according to Google analytics reports, people are getting lost when looking for just the comics. I have decided that Subculture of One cannot serve to both promote my comics and my web design. Thus, I made this site, The Pink Crow. I fully plan to overhaul Subculture of One once again, this time returning it to a more comics-focused theme.