I’ve been blogging for a long time. Since 2006 to be exact. So my site and I have been through a lot! And every couple of years I am suddenly overcome with the desire to totally refresh it. And this month was one of those times. 

wit & whimsy Site Refresh

My brand has evolved a lot and two years ago some of you may recall I went through the process of updating the wit & whimsy brand top to bottom. My designer Katelyn had come into my life to refresh Paris, Perfected (a match made in Instagram DM heaven!) and following her brilliant work transforming the Paris, Perfected brand – I knew I wanted her magic touch on wit & whimsy.

We brainstormed what I liked and didn’t like about my brand, where we thought I could better message what makes me different and we went through a lot of iterations on fonts and logos and so much more. 

This time we decided we wanted to bring a more elevated feel to the site. As someone who has been blogging for so long I have always loved the feel of “old school,” more traditional blogs. I never wanted my site to feel too editorial, too busy or too much like a magazine .com might. So I kept a pretty traditional feel to my site for a long time. 

This was also because there was a real lack of control when it came to site design updates I could make myself when it came to my hosting site. The world of blogging has changed a lot since I started my journey and it was nice to discover through this year’s process that, in the last few years, there have been a lot of improvements in platforms that give the blogger or site owner more control.

I know quite a bit about how to do backend updates but for the larger things, I’ve always relied on a third party team. It made for a slow, often frustrating process of back and forth.

So with this site update I decided to move my site to a platform that would allow me to make more custom updates on the fly. 

This was also an opportunity for me to really fix some of the things I had wanted to change about the site for so long.

So what has changed?

The Shop Updates

For the past two years updating The Shop to make it more functional has been on my list. The Shop previously was controlled by manual image/linking updates and it took forever. So it was a real resource suck and as such didn’t get updated as frequently as I felt was helpful. 

Now, we’re moving towards more widget based categories but also soon I’ll introduce you to sub-categorized pages for Meghan’s Closet and Beauty Favorites. No more searching for jeans amidst everything else I own or being unable to find what you’re looking for. Soon (when I am back from France this Spring!), you’ll be able to better search and shop all my Knitwear or all my favorite Makeup. It should make for a much more enjoyable experience for you guys as you look to shop my go-tos. 

In the meantime though, you’ll find refreshed categories that are easier to navigate as seen below. Certain categories are minimal right now as we work to build them out this Spring. 

Also now on the homepage you will find a section called New & Noteworthy. This is going to be my regularly updated curation of things I am seeing and loving to shop right now. Think of it as Meghan’s Favorites of the moment.

The New York City Guide

My Guide to New York City is officially refreshed and now in a handy PDF you can save to your phone! Scroll down on this page, too and you’ll find easy access to a lot of my City Guide blog posts!

Elevated Design Elements

Picking fonts and logos is such a labor of love. And I’m so lucky Katelyn has an eye for these things because she deeply understands my brand and was able to make suggestions that elevated the overall look and feel. My fonts have been refreshed and overall the site was designed through a lens of delivering a clean, elevated look with a lot of busyness removed.

Refined Navigation & Search

My site navigation felt clunky and didn’t prioritize what I wanted people to see and discover when they landed on witwhimsy.com. We’ve re-designed the navigation and really refined what you find and see on various pages. We also made the Search bar easier to see and use so you can hopefully find what you’re looking for in the Archives. For example – want to know about which Sarah Flint shoes I like the best? Type in Sarah Flint and you’ll be served the following + any other blog post in which I’ve mentioned the brand!

Mobile

The mobile version of wit & whimsy also got a major refresh! I hope you’ll find it easier and more enjoyable to use when you are spending time on the site from your mobile device. 

. . .

Site updates involve so much behind the scenes. They are a true labor of love – no matter how big or small the updates are. (Not to mention a massive investment!) This refresh involved moving my site to an entirely new platform – which is no small feat when you have nearly 4,000 blog posts to move 🙂 You inevitably run into issues (like not getting emails for 6+ hours!) and you have to be persistent and willing to try, try and try again to get things to a good place.

I owe Katelyn a huge thanks for her assistance and patience through all of this. And I will say, that when you find people who really cherish your brand as much as you do, it is such a gift to work alongside them on big undertakings like this.

If, in the coming days or weeks, you see something on the site that looks off (formatting or otherwise) or run into broken links or anything that doesn’t seem to work – please do let me know! I only see what I see and you guys are always so helpful at being my extra sets of eyes when things go awry. A big thank you in advance!

I hope you guys love the new site as much as I do! I am so excited to have this in place as I continue to create this year. This site remains my number one priority when it comes to content creation and I’m lucky to have each and every one of you here. Thank you for continuing to visit wit & whimsy as a destination for fulfilled, elevated living.