“My site is shit because I am not getting paid for it.” – Random webdev on Reddit.
Why is my website so obnoxiously minimalist?
Well, the random developer’s quote above made me push several puffs of air through my nose in a snicker because he was spot on. I think you will find that web developers may spend some bit of time on their career portfolio websites (even those are barely worth the effort) but why go nuts on something that you aren’t getting paid for?
For me, well… I am and have always been a minimalist when it comes to my tastes. Rarely does this come out when building for clients though… except for one opportunity to build a site for one of the Emmy Award winning producers of To Catch A Predator (notice I am not so minimalist enough to humble-brag?). He wanted a simple black and white site in WordPress so that he could edit it himself, and really… it suited his style. If you knew me in person, this style is just obvious.
I study the trends and follow them because who am I to deny a client what works in the “now”? For a short time I even taught a class on User eXperience (UX) design and what to track and design for in User Interfaces (UI). But that is all marketing. That is all to sell something… maybe not at first, but eventually. It’s fascinating stuff, to be honest. I pursued that type of information and wanted to apply everything I learned wherever it made sense.
But this site… I don’t even know what this site even is. I do know that it isn’t selling anything to anyone and it never will. It’s just a place for me to journal and try out coding projects… at least for now. Who knows… maybe I’ll fumble my way to creating THE hit new mobile app and nobody will ever read this because this site is now an ad for ____.
Right now I just want to break all the rules and play…
I want to play around like I did as a teenager discovering Microsoft FrontPage for the very first time and believing my own little Geocities site will be seen by the entirety of the world… even though I had nothing to say and sure had a ton of those animated “under construction” gifs.
I miss skipping class in college to build weird websites with no purpose other than the art of the thing. To be fair, if I spent that time building websites with a purpose I would have sooooo many more zeros attached to my paycheck by now. But, whatever… I miss the fun of doing what feels good and has somehow been lost in today’s internet world.
I just want to play.