Inventing Elephants

When the shape and size of the box changes, the mind starts coming up with new ideas on how to change what goes in the box.

I was reminded of this while checking out the new developer forums for Squarespace, the service I use to host and design my art website.  Between a note in one conversation about certain changes that were already coded into upcoming version 5 of the site building software and a link to an “examples” page that had changed since the last time I saw it, my options for presenting my content expanded considerably.

Ever since I got over the first blush of excitement at having a website I had been bumping into constraints in the site building software.  No matter how much I could do, and did, there was always something I thought to try and it didn’t work.  I accepted this because I only wanted to spend so much time learning web development skills, either to build my own from something closer to scratch or to more fully customize Squarespace’s platform.

So I wasn’t surprised that looking at others work and learning of upcoming options gave me new ideas on how to present my art and information about it.

I was surprised that it helped me to define what content I wanted to have.

It was as if I’d mentally gone from a document sleeve with a couple pockets to a briefcase with sections and pen holders and such.  I kept trying to stuff more into the document sleeve, but couldn’t figure out how to use what I have because I couldn’t easily reach all of it.  When I started looking at the briefcase I realized how this could go there and that could go here, but I also was able to say that this calculator I’ll use all the time, now that I can find it, and this cheat sheet, which was more accessible before, doesn’t even need to be here, because other tools serve the same purpose better. 

Now I have some project ideas to file away for later and some adjustments to start playing with…