Ever since I started to focus on Berchman.com I realized that my former “company” website, HamiltonBerchman Design Group, Inc., was no longer maintained, correct, or relevant. However, at the time I was fortunately too busy to even think about doing anything to the site.

Then one day I was doing research on a project and stumbled across a free portfolio template that stood out to me in more than one way. The template is called medifolio, by Dirk Leys who generously posted it online. I was particularly drawn to the “sliding” action when you click on a portfolio thumbnail image, and the return to the main page. There was a simple elegance to the whole thing. I looked at it and thought, “how can I do this type of page in WordPress and Thesis?” The original medifolio is a single, flat html page. How could I generate all the content, in the right order, with the right tags and syntax? I thought about it a while. A long while.

In the time since I first saw medifolio I was working on a client project requiring the listing of individual portfolio pieces, complete with images and text. It required a complete custom solution. By creatively using categories as parents I created blog posts that then occupied specific categories. I could then create custom loops to not only create a listing of the portfolio pieces at the top of the page, but I could have them link to the actual full description and image display further down the page (by using custom generated anchor links). You can see the work in action here on the website ckwrites.com. There are four custom lists generated across the top of the page after introductory text. All done within WordPress and Thesis with categories and custom page templates, and custom loops.

Since I had completed design and development of ckwrites.com I looked back at medifolio and the previous experience lent itself directly to making medifolio a reality. After some long nights tinkering with custom php and css solutions I got the basic page to work as the original static medifolio page. All the content was being dynamically generated from individual posts for each and every portfolio piece. All the tags, divs, etc. were being dynamically generated as well.

Once I had a basic working model the next thing to do was to implement. I’ve done this right now in two places where it lives, live on the Internet. The first implementation was at HamiltonBerchman Design Group, Inc.

I set out to rework, or basically remove, all the non-relevant content from the website and was left with a stripped down, single web page that tells what the current state of affairs is, and shows a sample of work that I completed in my time operating HamiltonBerchman Design Group, Inc.

Once I had this complete, I wanted to take it to another place and that was on the Dennison+Wolfe Internet Group website where I am a partner. This implementation allowed me to refine and rethink some things to how the portfolio is implemented.

I think both of these came out looking quite nice.

It will be a part of the new, upcoming Berchman.com redesign.

My next step, I think, is to clean this up, write a tutorial on how to implement this, and release it on an “as-is” basis. What does that mean? It means if you want it, download it, and figure it out.

That is what I had to do.

Let me know what you think.

This next phase of the overall Re-Alignment of Berchman.com as I stated in my first post for this project is to “define purpose, guiding principles, and desired outcomes” with this website.

Note: I am working on this project when it fits between client work, and posting when I can. I have not posted in a while because work has picked up a bit. However, I have no plans of abandoning this effort. Stay tuned!

By going through this ‘exercise’ I’ll also be constructing the map of my content. The map of content consists of what I write about on this site, the topics I cover, and the overall taxonomy of the web site in general.

Define Purpose

• Primarily to share things I learn and in turn learn from others.
• Secondarily it is a personal chronicle.

Guiding Principles

• I want to keep it honest, real, and fun. Pretty simple really.

Desired Outcome

• There are actually many. Instead of pontificating I will suffice it to say ‘successful‘
• Success would mean helping you, having readers, comments, and new clients to work with

How does this now impact my content map?

By knowing the definition of these three it helps me understand content requirements. What types of content are required on the website in order to meet the above needs?

• WordPress/Thesis Tutorials
• Video (Tutorials and Misc.)
• Writing on other topics

Presently there are 22 categories on this website. That is way too many for this size of a website. When reviewing the 22 I was able to narrow it down to 5 categories going forward

1. Articles/Features
2. Tutorials
3. WordPress
4. Thesis
5. Video

All my other categories were really misused ‘tags.’ Over time, in moments of hasty thinking, they accumulated and became more fractured. The remaining 17 “categories” are really “tags.” This is because they are classifying information within the content, not the content itself. Here is an excellent article articulating the distinction.

When I implement the website realignment I am going to remap those present “17 categories” and move them to tags and validate the members of each redefined category title.

Main Navigation

In addition to the dynamic content (blog posts) that evolves over time there are other content areas:

• Home
• Hire Me
• Pricing
• Contact
• Résumé
• Who is Berchman?

Tthere are also a host of other links; RSS, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. on other areas of the page. In order to simplify and streamline I am going to reduce the number of main navigation elements from 6 to a simple 4. I do this by adding smart subcategories.

The resulting navigation will be:

• Home
• Hire Me
  • How we work together
  • Pricing
  • Form to start the process
• About Me
  • Résumé
• Portfolio
  • Visual Examples
  • Client List

As always things change so I will remain flexible. I do think that this new structure—once visually in place—will be serve information better to you the visitor.

As always I appreciate your feedback, thoughts and input. Let me know what you think.

This post is the first in what may be many video posts (ie., vlog posts). I am exploring new content formats so this may appear to be a bit ‘raw’ and unrehearsed, but it is real. I’m not reading a script (although you do see me look off and pause—I’m looking at a whiteboard with notes).

So, how does this fit into the “Website Realignment” you may ask? Well at this stage I am assessing content and its function and role in the website:

• What types of content do I use?
• What content formats don’t I use?
• Are certain types of content suited to a specific format? (Tutorials are always text?)
• Should I have more than one type of content?
• Am I making this not simple?

So here it is. The first video post. I plan on these becoming higher quality the more I do them. Would definitely welcome your comments on using this format in the comment form below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Note: Recently someone asked to see all the posts from this series. They were reading the “Day X” as a series that was a post every day. Under that logic you would see there are many posts “missing” in this series. However, that is not the case. I am working on this project most days, between client work, and posting when I can. I have not posted in a while because work has picked up a bit. However, I have no plans of abandoning this effort. Stay tuned!

Making the Brand Visual

Now its time for the visual branding. This subjective exercise adds an element of challenge because whenever designers design for themselves it has the possibility of spiraling into a never ending reevaluation.

However, I have been thinking about the visual approach since I started this project. Paying attention to influences, likes, dislikes, colors, and typography for weeks now has allowed me to mentally prepare an ‘idea board’ in my mind.

The Icon

Encapsulating the essence of a company, entitiy, or person and its brand in a simple graphic mark is always a challenge. As I mentioned this is more so when it is for yourself.

I’ve done the previous research in define elements of my personal brand and now its time to take the next step and develop a visual mark, or more simply, my logo.

Where to start?

I typically start with the color palette. What mood do you want to convey? What attributes stand out from the brand? For every mood and attribute there is a color that will help convey what you want. There is a wealth of research and information on the science of color theory and the impact specific colors have on people within our culture. What is more interesting is that some colors have a very different interpretation and/or meaning in other cultures. So if you are developing an “mark/logo” for consumption overseas (I’m in the U.S.) it’s advisable to do some research so you are not using a color you and the client think is great only to find out that it’s bad juju in the country/market it will be seen in.

OK, so my color palette. From the survey and my own personal research the top three attributes for the berchman.com brand are:

1. Creativity
2. Intelligence
3. Kindness

If I select colors to reflect these three adjectives I come up with the following colors:

1. Brick Red (Warm, Energy, Strong)
2. Warm Yellow ( Imagination, Intelligence, Enlightenment)
3. Blue (Reliable, Trustworthy, Dependable, Committed)

So this is a base color palette for me to work from. It provides good contrast and it harkens to my love of Piet Mondrian paintings. However, I have a personal preference for subtle variations on these colors. You do not have to take ‘blue” at its default face value. You can adjust both brightness (light/dark) and saturation (full intensity/grayness) of each specific hue.

My Pallette

The Graphic Mark

Developing the graphic form, or mark, of the brand is an excercise in identity crisis. At first you have nothing. Sometimes you do have an exisiting mark and are redesigning, but if you are in the process of redesigning you really are still visually starting with nothing. You should not just be rehashing the exisitng identity if you are truly serious about the mark.

Influences

I have many influences when it comes to my own approach to design. I am a great admirer of the bauhaus, the swiss style, russian constructivism, abstract expressionism, and mid-century modernism. All of these share overlapping qualities, such as consideration of form, space, line, color, scale, and for me the use of the grid. Now I know some may think that using a grid instantly means everything has to be square—not so. Rather the use of the grid structure gives any design a scaffolding upon which to lay to lay a framework of line, form and color.

What I find is that, knowing your content parameters, the process of designing a grid structure that considers the importance of each content element and provides a consistent visual experience is key. Allowing the content to facilitate understanding through the use of a well designed grid is essential. But, I digress (more on this when we layout the website later)

Needless to say I will be laying out my identity on a grid and the my resulting mark will have the visual influence of a grid as well.

The Shape

I am basing the shape of my mark on the square. The simplest of forms it is literally the building block of the internet. The square for me is synonymous with the pixel on the screen. One bit, on or off, posititve or negative. I went through some variations and my result is #4 below.

On top of the shape I will be using typography, more in the next paragraph, and I will be using the typography in the negative. This means that the typogrpahy will ‘knockout’ or ‘punch-through’ the larger shape. You can see that progression here:

Also, not that I am making the typography bleed. This terms means that the shape, line, or color is going off the edge of the contaiing shape. It is a term common to the printing industry when ink goes off the edge of the page.

The Typography

For me selecting typography can turn into a trip down the rabbit hole (alice wonderland) so I always need parameters before I being my search. I need to know what style, era, or adjective we are trying to convey.

For this mark I had to select 2 typefaces. One for the mark and one for the name.

For the mark

I wanted a typeface that was strong, stable, defined, and clear. These were my final candidates:

My final selection was Lubalin Graph. It is clear, well defined and because of its serif nature presents stability. I chose the lower case “b” because lower case implies simplicity and that is something I strive for in all I do (a hat tip to being introduced to the KISS theory in college programming classes).

Here is my final variation of Lubalin Graph and my shape to make my final mark (showing scaling).

NOTE: Of paramount importance to me (and to anyone for that matter) is that your mark scale well. Meaning whether a bilboard size mark, or a mark the size of a postage stamp you maintain ledgibility and impact!

For the name

My final selection for the typography that displays the brand name is Avenir. It has long been a favorite of mine, and although I spent hours looking at alternates, I came back to Avenir. It has a cleaness and intelligence that essential to the brand. “Crisp” is what I would use to describle its legibility and ability to communicate. Here is my typeset for the name:

and to inject some variation of emphasis I made “com” lighter than “berchman” and made the dot its own color as well. Here is the graphic for the variation:

The Final Rendering

Now that the mark and the typography are set its now time to marry the two. I have given consideration to the spacing of the elements in relation to one another as well as the scale of each to one another. Here I present the vertical and horizonal elements in 2 different sizes so you can note scale changes.

Conclusion

My hope is that this post shows you the thinking and process I went through to develop my final mark. I will admit that not all things are for all tastes but the process I’ve shared is important. The process is not just slapping some clip art with whatever type I have. It is a researched and refined process. There is thought and intention behind all the elements you use. You should be able to explain your decision for all the pieces of your visual identity for they are the graphic representation of your brand.

As always let me know if you have any questions and stay tuned for the next installment—Purpose of the Website and Website Content Review.

The next step in branding Berchman.com is to develop a positioning statement.

From the brandeo website:

“Also referred to as a brand strategy, positioning strategy, or brand positioning statement, a positioning statement is a succinct description of the core target audience to whom a brand is directed, and a compelling picture of how the marketer wants them to view the brand.”

I would adjust this for my purposes because I am developing a personal brand statement, not a corporate brand statement:

A positioning statement is a succinct description of the core audience to whom a your personal brand is directed, and a compelling picture of how you want them to view your brand.

What are the elements?

The brandeo website goes on to say that there are 4 elements to the brand statement:

1. Target Audience – the attitudinal and demographic description of the core prospect to whom the brand is intended to appeal; the group of customers that most closely represents the brand’s most fervent users.
2. Frame of Reference – the category in which the brand competes; the context that gives the brand relevance to the customer.
3. Benefit/Point of Difference – the most compelling and motivating benefit that the brand can own in the hearts and minds of its target audience relative to the competition.
4. Reason to Believe – the most convincing proof that the brand delivers what it promises.

Then we get to a  Standard Template for a Positioning Statement:

For (target audience), (brand name) is the (frame of reference) that delivers (benefit/point of difference) because only (brand name) is reason to believe).

There is no way that this canned, dry approach is going to work for me. It feels way too formulaic. I am not selling OxiClean or Shamwows.

So how else can I approach this?

I looked for other approaches to get this mental process going. One I came across was from Ralph Caplan and to me speaks more the the development of personal branding:

1. Who are you?
   Are you a manufacturer? A service provider? A retailer?
2. What do you do?
   Do you make cars? Do you fix cars? Do you sell cars?
3. Why does it matter?
   Are you the best? Are you the fastest? Are you the cheapest?
   

These questions help get to the core of the issue for this personal branding exercise. They frame the question(s) at a person not an inanimate object. Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter? Pretty simple. The key is that this is personal branding not just branding and that brings something else into play that my friend Thomson Dawson put perfectly as a comment on my previous post. He said,

Brands make promises. When the promises are kept, the value of the brand grows. The key to “branding” (defined as the act of building equity into your value proposition) is to separate your value proposition from the slush pile. The key to separating your value proposition from the slush pile is to engage in what matters to you (authenticity is more powerful than originality) and have what matters to you matter (serve) to others.

This comment stood out because of his mention of authenticity. This is very important to me as it’s something that I both appreciate and put out in the world. So lets answer those questions:

1. Who am I?
   I am Berchman. I am a service provider. I am a WordPress expert, certified Thesis designer, and consultant. I am creative, intelligent, kind
2. What do I do?
   I design and program websites. I offer advice on best-practices for communicating using the Internet. I read about and research new technology as it pertains to what I do.
3. Why does it matter?
   My experience, skills, and expertise with the Internet are valuable to me and other people.

Here it is.

From answering the questions above honestly I can draft a first try at a personal brand positioning statement.

Berchman provides intelligent WordPress programming and creative Thesis design to make websites that are smartly engineered, simple to navigate, and easy to maintain.

If I were to frame this in the ‘classic’ model presented above it might read like this:

For WordPress and Thesis solutions, Berchman is the creative and intelligent expert that delivers smartly engineered, simple to navigate, and easy to maintain websites.

Conclusion.

This is not a bad start. The key to this is I am making the statement, being honest and authentic, and I getting it out there. I have gone through this process once before and I stewed over the statement for over a month before releasing it to the public. I learned a lesson from that experience and now publish.

Some good resources I found when researching this:

• How to write a positioning statement
• Recourses
• Poor Agency Positioning
• The Art of Self Branding

Next up: Visual identity of the brand.

I’m picking up where I left off on the previous post.  So far I’ve gathered adjectives 17 friends, family, and clients perceive as my personal brand. I’ve also identified adjectives I would use for my personal brand.  But what else is there that might have an influence on my personal brand?

• My opinions, likes, and dislikes
• What tools am I working with?
• Who do I do business with?
• Who is my target market?
• What are my roots, my upbringing, where I was raised, etc.
• What is my story?

My opinions, likes and dislikes

There’s no doubt that your personal opinions, the things you like, and the things you dislike have an impact on who you are and how you project yourself into the world.  This in turn impacts your personal brand.  When I speak of opinions. I’m not referring to things like personal political opinions, rather I’m referring to my personal professional opinion’s. For example, in my opinion WordPress and Thesis are the best CMS combination for any self publisher to use on the Internet.

Things you like and dislike also have an impact. For example, some things I like:

• The Internet (duh)
• Design of all kinds (graphic, information, packaging, product, typography, etc.)
• 20th-century abstract expressionist artwork (Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Jasper Johns, Franz Kline, etc.)
• Music of all kinds
• Real football (the EPL not the NFL)

And some things I don’t like:

• Bad design
• Inefficiencies
• Luddites
• Messes and clutter
• Manchester United

What this all boils down to is an exercise in distillation. You need to continuously ask questions of yourself. Simultaneously, you need to be answering questions. You should not be looking to others to tell you what your personal brand should be.  You have to decide what information is relevant and helps reinforce those qualities that are important to you.

Remember though that everyone has an opinion.  People may already have a perception of what they think you are like, and that influences their thinking.  Don’t be entirely dismissive of their opinions, rather embrace the information. You may find it useful somewhere down the road.

What tools am I working with?

This may seem like a mundane question, but again, it’s a process of collecting information.  I use an Apple G5 dual processor computer as my main machine.  I do 99% of my work on this machine.  I use WordPress, Thesis, the Adobe creative suite, BBEdit, CSSedit, and a variety of other smaller software tools to help me get the job done.  I also have a PC laptop that I use primarily as a preview machine to see what websites look like to the majority of people on the Internet.

Who do I do business with?

I do business with large companies and solo entrepreneurs that are serious about using the Internet. They want to establish or increase their significance in people’s lives through the power of web-based communications. This does not mean that they are stiff and stuffy. Rather, I like to work with people who have goals, perhaps don’t know exactly how to achieve them with Internet tools, and like to have fun during the process.

Who is my target market?

Businesses and people who need expert consultation in developing their websites. They want to use smart, proven technology that works (like WordPress). Many times they know what they want and realize that its quicker to hire a professional to get the job done that much quicker. They may or may not know about the power of Thesis as a framework, but we can work on that.

What is my story?

Everyone has a story and it impacts your person brand. My story is simple. I grew up in a very small village in New York called Waterford. I lived there the first 23 years of my life. Coming from a small town I learned to appreciate people, history and heritage, and fundamentals. I left home to go to college and came back to Waterford after graduating  with 2 degrees; B.A. in Fine Arts and B.S in Information Science. I then chased my wife out to California 16 years ago and we started a family about 9 years ago. I worked for a variety of advertising and design firms before striking out on my own about 4 years ago. Now here I am today. That is essentially it in a nutshell.

So where from here?

Now that I have collected data, the next step is to articulate my brand in terms of a positioning statement and begin exploring visual ideas. That is for the next post in this series.

Since writing the first post in this series I read a great article on A List Apart that spoke volumes to me about the process I am embarking on and documenting here. If you do not read alistapart.com I suggest you check it out. To summarize–I am not so much “redesigning” berchman.com as I am “realigning” berchman.com.

I am reviewing the goals and purpose of this website and ‘realigning‘ content and design to help achieve those goals. Initially when I launched berchman.com I thought nothing of ‘goals’ or ‘purpose’ it was just my personal website. The times and purpose of this website have changed. So I have changed the title from “A Website Redesign” to “A Website Realignment” because it more accurately reflects what I am doing.

The first part of realigning this website is defining the brand of Berchman.com. Berchman is me so subjective/objective issues are very strong with taking on this exercise. Berchman does have a brand in the eyes of the beholder, but up to this point-in-time I have never done any research to get to the essence of the Berchman brand. 

Look outside yourself

First thing I did was conduct a survey (which took a while to get responses). I asked one question of 17 people using the free tools at Survey Monkey. The people I asked know me personally and/or professionally. Some have known me all their lives and one has known me only a month as my newest client. The goal was to collect data on my personal brand from a wide audience and the question was simple.

What are three adjectives that best describe me, Berchman?

I provided three empty text boxes and since the question was open ended and each of the respondents know me differently, the answers were somewhat varied, but many answers have similar meanings. For example “intelligent” and “knowledgeable” are similar enough to both indicate “intelligence.”

I took all the answers (51 replies) and placed the words with similar meaning into columns on a spreadsheet. This  exercise allowed me to do 2 things:

1. Sort and see the replies to determine the most common adjectives people use to describe me
2. Calculate a percentage based on the number of replies to measure significance

The answers surprised me because what you think other people think of you is usually very different than reality. The top five adjectives with their associated percentages of appearance are:

1. Creative – 82%
2. Intelligent – 71%
3. Kind- 47%
4. Driven – 29%
5. Fun – 29%

I’m happy that without active effort these are the attributes of my personal brand as seen by others. This is the purely organic impression of my personal brand. I think anyone would be pleased with this list. This list will help inform my decisions moving forward with my brand and website, and will help reinforce these attributes to all that visit my website and work with me.

Now on to ‘my perception’ of my brand.

Looking from within

I know that some branding experts would say my idea of my brand doesn’t matter. Its what other people “see & perceive” of my brand that matters. While I agree with the latter I don’t entirely agree with the former. I think ones personal ideas and opinions about their brand matter a great deal. How and what is perceived of your personal brand must matter a great deal to you professionally.

• What if others perception of your brand is not what you want it to be?
• How can you realign to change the public’s ideas and perceptions of your brand?

Fortunately for me my personal brand attributes are in line with most of my thinking about my personal brand. And more importantly I really don’t need to “reposition” my brand so much as I need to refine and reinforce.

The way I think about my own personal brand is slightly different than that of the respondents. While the words, or adjectives, I use are different they can certainly be classified into the broader categories of replies that came from the survey respondents. My adjectives for my personal brand would be (in no particular order):

1. Perceptive
2. Inquisitive
3. Detailed
4. Discerning
5. Refined
6. Fun

It’s easy to see how my adjectives above can fit right in to what people replied and this is great news for me. But what else can help inform my personal brand?

That is to be the topic of the next post in this series: A Website Realignment

Your thoughts and comments on this post are most welcome.