If there's one thing to take away from this post it's that the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta is incredible. I remember class field trips here as a kid, and I estimated that it must have been at least 15 years since my last visit. Despite the massive crowds over the August long weekend, my overdue visit simply proved that the museum has become even more impressive.
The collection of fossils, exhibits, and history make the Royal Tyrrell Museum a world class showcase for dinosaur paleontology. The number of complete dinosaur skeletons that have been assembled is nothing short of amazing.
One of the guides available explained how the restoration process can take years for a single skeleton, and the Royal Tyrrell houses one of the richest collections in the world. According to their website they currently have over 125,000 fossil vertebrates, invertebrates, plants and geologic specimens. With the Alberta Badlands providing an equally inspiring backdrop, I had no trouble putting my camera to good use.
It kicked off late in 2009, but fizzled out by the end of 2010. Then it was back by late 2011, but still it wasn't quite right. Halfway through 2012 though, I think I've got it! My portfolio, version 3.0 is complete. These few years of trying to fine-tune what I wanted my portfolio site to be has really been a process of elimination.
I was always preaching simplicity for my portfolio, but I'd never really achieved it. A clean start always seemed to snowball into additional pages for new projects, galleries, and so on and so forth. My new business cards that I made for the new year were cool and straightforward, but my portfolio had quickly become a mass of self indulgence that held too much content to be a hub. Frankly, that's what this blog is for!
I completed the redesign over my staycation and I'm really pleased. Fandrix.com now consists only of a landing page and a network page that links to everything else. Simple, clean, easy to navigate, and ideal for self promotion when someone actually visits. It's what I should have done from the beginning. It's also what I'd been trying to do for so long with Editing Luke that I think I probably needed all of the trial and error to figure out what should finally be what.
Looking at my stats, traffic has gone up consistently every month so far this year, and my contact page has been getting a lot more use. It was the right time to finally address this constantly under-construction project. I also discovered that after not renewing editingluke.com in favor of fandrix.com, that original domain is now for sale for $1495. Type it in if you don't believe me. It's ridiculous! Ridiculously flattering.
But, enough of my long windedness, it's time you check out what I've been talking about and head over to Fandrix before I realize I need to start on version 4.0.
