So easy even I can do it.

To understand that title, you have to know that I’m nowhere close to a cyber geek , or even a guy that really has a clue about websites. Strange then that I list web designer in my “career” list on our handy dandy About page. How does that work?

Let me tell you. It’s all due to just 2 simple magical words… Google searches. See, I worked for a local photographer for about a year, and during the winter (when photography work is scarce) he decided he wanted a new website, but he didn’t want to pay a bundle. I figured I’d give it a shot. I had always thought it would be cool to know how to at least stumble my way through the process of putting a website together, but figured that would be one of those things that never really materialized.

So I started the way that any twisted individual would, I searched for some other photographer sites, found a couple that I liked, and looked at their code to see if I could figure out what did what. I copy and pasted, aka outright stole, some code and uploaded it to my site. Pretty much none of it worked, which is what I expected. I went back and stole more code, and a little bit actually started looking like something I wanted.

After going through this process until I had something that kinda, sorta, almost looked like a site, I started searching for code (with my trusty old Google search) that did the stuff I wanted done. Some of the code looked similar to what I’d already “put together” (remember the key word kids, stole) and I figured maybe it was what I wanted. A lot of trial and error ended up having some of it fall together.

In the end, I think I did a pretty solid job for my first site. My boss was really happy, which was all that really mattered I guess, and I was ecstatic that the thing didn’t crash every time I looked at it. Compared to some of the other first time sites I’ve seen, it was phenomenal. Best of all, I had an interest in trying to do some more of this design stuff. So I started looking for some work. I started by looking in the city chamber of commerce at the new businesses. I then looked at these new businesses websites. Then, I took those that either didn’t have a site, or had a crappy site, and emailed them saying that I was a local web designer looking for some work and experience.

Today I met with the first of those customers. Their site is… less than what I’d call… good. My first thought was, “hey, maybe I’m not in over my head after all.” Now the next step is to put something new together. Through a little innovation and a bunch of google searches, I hope to have something worth looking at in 2 weeks. The good news is that my client isn’t in a huge hurry, so I should have plenty of time to get something figured out. I hope to give you something good to laugh at as I document my trials and tribulations of my new web design.