Rebrand, Reboot
I first started designing and developing
websites in 1997 or so on my very first computer. A trusty Macintosh 8600 Power PC 604e.
At the time I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn with my now ex-wife Kelly. By day I’d landed a job as as a research assistant through a temp company at Chancellor Investments, LLC which after my first year there was subsequently sold to and became a part of “Invesco”, another institutional investment company out of Atlanta.
I mention this only because it was the furthest thing I could’ve imagined for myself, studying art and graphic design as I’d done in college as a faculty brat back in my hometown of Boston at BU.
From There to Here
Life sometimes takes such a meandering path. It was my friend Mike Levine, (for whom I’ve recently completed a redesign/rearchitecting of his company’s website, HappyGiant) who recommended I “get a Mac” when I told him I was going to finally try to pursue design. This was after having spent the early part of the ‘90’s living in the East Bay, working at Amoeba Music and generally being a slacker, as one did back then ;-).
So, there’s something a bit poetic to me that after years and years of working in this industry, I’m (finally!) debuting a new “brand” and website just after completing work for Mike! After all, among many other wonderful qualities he possesses, it was at his suggestion and encouragement that I even go into this wacky career in the first place!
And now that I’ve come through the past three years of cancer and renal failure and am in the process of “rebooting” my life and career, it seemed only natural and sensible that I update my business and personal website to more accurately reflect who I am and the kind of work I do now.
For the past ten years or so, I’ve been using the domain fledglingdesign.com, which was originally based upon the fact that I considered myself a fledgling as a designer. Much like the contractor whose house is never complete due to all their work and time being taken up by clients, I’ve had a similar problem with my own “brand” (for lack of a better word) and website, hence it’s laid fallow for far too long to the point where I got stuck in a weird place of not even wanting to update it because I’d outlived the usefulness of the name. Also, so much has changed in my life and the industry since I first started out let alone since I first developed my now old site. I needed an entirely clean slate.
So, here it is. Martin Ferrini Design. A much more straight forward brand and as modern a design as I can manage given the current limitations upon my time, but that hopefully is a far better reflection of my work. Plus I finally have a proper CMS and blog as I’m using my go-to CMS these days, Squarespace.
Yay me!
