Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

I’ve always liked creating things. The problem is that once the thing is created, all I can see are its flaws. I hear this is a common problem among designers and other creative types. The desire for perfection, the habit of criticism, and the knowledge of the underlying process combine to create a state of never-ending dissatisfaction. In short, I have no idea if the BU Vision Sciences Laboratory now has a good website or not.

It’s certainly a marked improvement over the previous mess, I feel confident saying that much. The new design greatly improves the usability of the site and presents the lab with a professionalism befitting the research it produces. Also, I am no longer embarrassed to have my name on it.¹

One never wants to get too ostentatious with an academic site. Those that try too hard tend to end up as collages of poor color choices, while sites that don’t try hard enough become little more than unformatted lists of misaligned paragraphs and images. Clean and useful were my keywords on this one. I also did my best to maintain consistency with the university’s new(ish) brand identity standards, while at the same time including a lab logo that I personally dislike. It’s a cat. Moreover, it’s a cat that demonstrates the phenomenon of neon color spreading. Hi, can you tell we’re scientists? In any case, the cat is now playfully hiding behind the university logo, which both anthropomorphizes and obstructs it from view. Hey, you two birds? Meet the stone.

I suppose I can trust that the design is a good one, as suddenly my colleagues are interested in making sure that the site is an accurate reflection of their work.  And there is no greater flattery than genuine interest.

1. I say this with nothing but love and respect for my colleagues. They are all wonderful people. It’s the website that kept me up at night. ∧