andrewkurjata.ca is now confluence

Posted on 17 April 2016

The url is the same, but I’ve decided to rename this site from “andrewkurjata.ca” to “confluence.” I’ve been using the name confluence for a while now- first for my newsletter and for then for when I take posts from here and republish them on medium. The title of “andrewkurjata.ca” made sense when my blog posts were solely being published on andrewkurjata.ca. But we live in a new online world, and so even though everything starts here, it seems to have more of a life when it gets distributed through other channels- such is the nature of the internet now. So “confluence” is what my writing will go under no matter where you wind up reading it.
The name is inspired by the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, whose traditional name for the territory on which I now live translates to “people of the confluence.” That word evokes meaning for me, both of the local geography and of the idea of bringing people together to exchange stories or ideas. So there’s that.
To go with the new name, I’ve given things a slightly different visual identity. Everything’s the same below the header, but up top there’s some changes. The biggest one is that this:

is gone. From almost day one of this blog, it’s been my logo. I actually stole it from my university newspaper or, rather, salvaged it. When I was editor-in-chief I made it up in Microsoft Paint, because I thought a moose was a good signifier for a university where you were sometimes late for class because a moose was in the door (the cliff is because the paper’s name is “Over the Edge”- get it?). After I left the new team (wisely) went with something more visually appealing, so I kept it for myself at the top of this site. The harsh yellow was always something of a sore thumb against the minimal whites and greys that I used for the rest of the page, but I liked it (and still do).

But, since my last re-design which went even more minimal than before, this old yellow logo has been even more out of place. Even more problematic, it looks terrible as a preview image on Facebook, a Twitter avatar, or as the thumbnail for a Medium collection. I decided it was time for a change. Drawing on the name confluence and the idea of two rivers meeting I came up with this.

A good start, but a little too harsh for my liking. I’d gone from this big yellow moose to a very solid black. I tried lightening it up, and I brought the moose back.

That helped- the moose added back some personality and it had the added bonus of helping center things more. But it was still just too dark for my liking. So I tried turning the black to blue, like rivers.

That lightened the mood, but every time I look at this it makes me think of the Argentinian flag. So I decided to borrow the orange I use to highlight words that double as links.

Closer, but it was a little too solid for what’s going on here. So I took the orange and moved it elsewhere, going further with the idea of two separate streams coming together.

This I liked. I lightened the orange a little bit so that it goes to the darker orange when you hover over the image with a mouse, like so.

And that’s the way it is right now.
I’ve also taken this colour identity and used it to make images that are usable on other sites. For example, this is the profile photo for the Twitter, Facebook, and Medium pages where confluence posts are published.

And this acts as both the background banners and the thumbnail preview when the site is shared socially.

Here is this post showing up on Facebook:

And here’s what posts look like published on Medium.

I’m not trained in this stuff in any way, so there are some rough edges here and there that I’ll play at smoothing out over the next while, but this is it: a consistent name and visual identity for my writing across the web.
I’m happy for you keep following along here, but if you prefer other channels here’s where you can subscribe:

Let me know if you have any troubles, and as always, thanks for coming along.

Filed under: design, meta