My first manifesto was a simple declaration of faith.

My second manifesto came as a way of changing the church.

My third manifesto is this website. Today.

I rediscovered minimalism a couple of years ago (I even made a Lenten devotional around it). But it was a particular minimalist manifesto which had the most profound impact on me.

Brian Gardner showed me another way of seeing life and work. His own exploration of minimalism led him to a more focused view of not only his personal life, but of his digital life. As a web designer, his work is the digital world. As founder of StudioPress, his designs power millions of sites around the world.

His manifesto helped me see in design, as in life, we are full of distractions. We have “sidebars” which pull us away from our main “content”.

He declared that we should live life and web design with “no sidebars.”

I instantly ditched them. But that wasn’t enough.

The new look.

Over the last two months, I’ve been working on a new look for my website. It is finally here!

While I spent a lot of that time tinkering, a much greater part was learning how CSS works and troubleshooting changes I was making to my site.

I use the Genesis Framework, which makes changing the site super easy if you know what you are doing. It isn’t drag-and-drop; it takes getting under the hood and monkeying.

Which is what I did.

I took an existing child theme from StudioPress and customized it.

I took inspiration from Gardner’s own site (which I love!) and made a more minimalist and focused website.

The new focus: love.

Brian Gardner didn’t just give me visual direction. It was how he applied uncompromised focus to his website and brand redesign.

I’ve often struggled with my own branding because I’ve always looked too narrow. They always tell you to go deeper and more specific, get down to your base niche.

For Brian Gardner, that’s creative professionals.

Looking at others, I see that for Tripp Fuller, that’s theology nerds and for Jeff Goins, its novice writers.

But these niches are far more broad than I take them for. I struggled to narrow it down so far that I passed by the space I occupy.

My niche has been with Christians looking for a new perspective. But this isn’t it.

I write for people who are struggling to craft a truer faith. People who know in their souls they are called to love and give and become something in this world. People who know that love is at the center of everything — we just need help seeing it.

The people I serve seek love in and bring love to the world.

Love is at the center of this.

Future Changes

Rather than use this as a hard relaunch, I’m rebranding as I go.

I’m working on a short ebook for those who sign up for my newsletter. They will get it before anyone else (and give me some feedback!).

This fall, I’ll put more focus into making my weekly newsletter (currently: The Drewsletter) a more useful offering to you.

If you’re a writer or want to share your own thoughts, I’d love to include you with guest posts and response questions. Just contact me here, Facebook, or Twitter and let me know what you’re into. I’ll include you in the next call for submissions.

You are made for love. Now let’s figure out what that means.