If you’ve ever seen the movie “Young Frankenstein“, there is a particular part when Dr. Frankenstein fails to bring his “creature” to life. Upon realizing his failure he turns to his assistant and says, “Be of good cheer. If science teaches us anything, it teaches us to accept our failures, as well as our successes, with quiet dignity and grace.” Immediately after saying this he starts screaming and beating the crud out of the lifeless creature! Hilarious!

The reason why I mention this particular scene is because it so closely parallels the creation of my new blog / portfolio layout & site. (make sure to check it out if your reading this through an rss feed) Over the years, again and again I would begin designing, cutting, and coding with hopes of bringing this creature to life. However, in the end, due to “this or that”, I would never successfully breath life into the beast. In the back of my mind I would try to accept the failure with quiet dignity but in reality I would say, “screw it” and dump the whole project. I am sure many of you can relate.

You see, by the time I FINALLY got back to working on the project, I had already learned a whole slew of new and great CSS and/or JavaScript tricks that I wanted to apply or some sort of new design concept that would make my site all the more merrier. Thus, the process would start all over again.

Well, this time I was determined to bring this beast to life! So, after many hours of designing, cutting, coding, scripting, frowning and smiling… I threw the switch and the creature slowly arose from it’s lifeless frame and took it’s first breath. As much as I would like to accept my presumed success with “quiet dignity and grace”, much like my failures I’ll say, “screw it” and scream like Dr Frankenstein, “It’s Alive…ALIVE!”

The other day I was able to draw added inspiration from a recent article by Jared Spool named, “Failure Is Not an Option – It’s a Requirement“. There’s a quote in the article that reads, “Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgments.” When used in the context of creating a top notch user experience, this quote is right on and I am a firm believer.

So, it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to my new creation and welcome you to “Branded X”… enjoy!