You may have noticed we recently refreshed the design of DESK.
Like most internal projects, we kept pushing a redesign down the list of priorities. Week after week, we’d play around with some ideas but never execute them. Like all “back burner” projects, the longer we put it off, the bigger and more daunting it started to feel.
And then one day I had an idea for a new navigation. I quickly designed it in a separate file, shared it with the team and we decided to implement it. Within 20 minutes, we had a new nav.
Once the nav was live, we thought our homepage grid should be a bit wider. We went for it and it changed the whole feeling of the page, from a blog style to a more editorial look.
Then we replaced the banners on our homepage. Then we changed the color of article pages. We changed how article authors are presented. We added a fresh new typeface.
After months of putting off the “big project,” we finally accomplished it, piece by piece.
Was it efficient? Not really.
Is it a shocking new visual direction? Not at all, and we didn’t want it to be.
Are we officially done? Probably not.
The point is, we’re making progress.
You can apply the same to your portfolio redesign. Instead of making it A Big Project that hangs over your head and never gets done, do it piece by piece. A typeface change one day. A navigation update the next. A new color or a fresh case study. Before you know it, you have a whole new portfolio.
Efficiency is a good thing. But sometimes, inefficiency gets the job done.
