I've been jonesing to learn HTML5 to leverage on my agency-based projects, but the opportunity was not making itself available soon enough. The pseudoroom design site has always been an evolving experiment/testbed, and seemed like the next natural option for learning/applying HTML5. Admittedly, the last Wordpress iteration(s) of this site became fraught with poorly cobbled together code: both my own patchwork, and numerous plugins, being the main culprits. Since pseudoroom is not oft-updated, this was an opportunity to start from absolute ground zero, and competely CMS/Wordpress-free. After devouring HTML5 for Web Designers and Introducing HTML5, I was ready to develop a design concept.
The visual facet of the project was born from a general theme I've had in play for quite some time. For years now, iterations of my bio have been inclusive of my "...passion for design; in particular, its infusion with the digital landscape." This broad "digital landscape" concept is where I began. Being a lifelong Chicagoan, I transformed our skyline into the basis of what the digital landscape would look like. From there evolved everything else: the elevator pitch typography formed the sun and sky. I visualized myself as a citizen within the digital landscape. The formal buttoned-down UI design enthusiastically followed over many subsequent weeks.
At last, I was ready to fuse the visual and technical design. After some programmatic execution discussions with my Lead Developer at the agency (who learned HTML5 in tandem with me, and also did much of this site's jQuery), it was time to throw down. De-learning using the semantic-neutral <div> element as a crutch was odd initially. The logic and semantics behind HTML5 are absolutely delicious, however: how content is delineated takes a good deal of hierarchical planning to achieve the maximum end benefit for the user/browser.
Over 4 months later, here we are. I'm no HTML5 expert yet — not by a long shot. The training wheels are still very much on. Starting with a clean slate, via a complete custom code build beneath a fresh design concept, has made this project an absolutely tremendous learning experience. Things will be constantly evolving under the hood of this site as I keep furthering my knowledge of HTML5. pseudoroom's perpetual remodeling is but a blip amongst the digital landscape, in any case.