The first website I ever created was a gaming website, as in it was a website wherein I inserted as many Miniclip game plug-ins as I possibly could and then declared myself the true Miniclip. It was 2010, I was 9 years old, and people theoretically still used MySpace. I cannot remember the URL (nor the hosting site, though I actually believe it may have been WordPress) but I think it included the word “monkey.” The second, a website about unicorns, granted me a platform to espouse my beliefs on where unicorns really lived (Antarctica) and what they really looked like (white coat but the color of their horns denoted their species). From the very beginning of my “web developer” career, I’ve striven to have fun and make things for myself which I could proudly share with friends.
But websites – and their nature as virtual resumes or portfolios – have come to represent aspects of a person’s digital identity. With this change comes a new opportunity for owning and operating personal websites, as we have been charged to do for this class. While the initial impetus for creating this website may be for the purposes of the course, playing around on WordPress and exploring other people’s websites has inspired me to try to make this website something more. My goal for the site is to ultimately demonstrate a mix of the fun, personal aspects I loved as a child, a site to link my resume and any DH projects that we may create in this class, and a digital portfolio for my personal photography and videography projects. The site itself has so many capabilities, and for the price I paid, I am determined to use them!
In terms of actually designing the website, I encountered varying degrees of difficulty. While changing the layout and adding plugins felt generally straightforward, I ran into confusion in trying to set up menu pages and generate the required CSS code (I eventually figured out how to change the color of my footer using CSS, but only after staring at the “Inspect” code for the site for about an hour). There is also a clear balance of what looks professional and what makes me happy that I struggled to find. Eventually, I settled for the idea that I will keep the site fun and a bit silly for now, but tone up the professionalism should I decide to share it with employers or other superiors.
Though I remember little from my elementary school website endeavors, I do recall enough to immediately notice a few improvements and downsides between rolling out my own website and using a hosted service. Some benefits I noticed included the huge addition of control over both the appearance of my website but also the user experience. Additionally, being able to register my own domain name, rather than having the additional .wordpress.com is certainly a benefit. I also feel that there is a clearer amount of effort that goes into developing and maintaining a site on one’s own, something viewers would likely admire. However, on the flip side of that very same point, designing the website from near scratch can take a lot more effort, and also obviously costs a pretty penny.
Regardless of the future of my website, I know the “now” looks very aesthetically pleasing, so visit at dontworrybegaby.com
One reply on “From Unicorns to University”
I really like the clean look of your website! I also had a lot of confusion when trying to use the CSS code, most notably it wouldn’t always change a color or font of something that was pre-programmed, so I’m still struggling with that in some sense.