Today I went through the code I wrote to put my comics collection online in 2000. In 2004 I posted to my blog, using Blogger, that they were for sale. Here’s the post. The PHP code was about as good as one could imagine it might be by a person whose primary skillset was implementing in HTML fancy designs.
I have added that page to my archive. It’s got old designs, links to the Internet Archive, various ephemeral experiments, splash pages, and the like. The page tells the story of my whole site over the decades. Moving things there has me considering ways to have it be even more dynamic and visual.
It’s very much a work in progress.
I feel very pleased to be experimenting with design. It’s another of the positive outgrowths of Front End Study Hall. I think during the last one I started a sentence with “As designers we are obliged to think about…”
I have not thought of myself as a web designer in a long time, but out came that thought from my mouth.
It might be catching because James gave FrESH a great compliment in his post Confidence when he said:
I felt the same way about front-end web development, too. Earlier this year, I knew the basics of HTML and CSS, but I had no understanding of many of the modern technologies I could use. I knew grid existed, but I had no experience with its use. Then came Front End Study Hall, in which I learned about many technologies and how to think about them.
Refactoring PHP code and programming things invisible to users has been lucrative, but I’ve always been conscious about how my work works and looks and what impressions I give. So why not be a designer or call myself one?
Whether I call myself a designer, I design.
Design is also verb.
And so, I’ll verb design.
