Post #5 The Act of Creation

I took an entire year of photography in high school.  I learned how to use manual 35mm camera, form a composition, develop film and mat photos.  Developing my own film was a new experience for me.  I would be stuck in a dark little closet feeding film into its canister by touch only,Then taking it out into the light and mixed with the proper solution, all the while praying that I had done everything correctly.  I would never know if my film turned until the next day or if it was a waste of all of my hard work.  It was a real process of time and creation. Afterwards, holding the finished results always left me with a sense of fulfillment that I have rarely experienced since. 

            Working with web design brought some of that feeling back.  Even though I know I am not great with working in the medium and my finished product could be improved on, it is something that I have created that I am proud of.  It came from nothing but notepad, little buttons on my keyboard and my own imagination.  Even though I cannot hold it in my hands I still have that sense of fulfillment that usually only comes to me when creating some form of art.  I can show people something that I did and whether they smash my work to bits or tell me I did a good job, it doesn’t really matter.  I did it and that is what counts.  

            I was really looking to design a website with the some basic rules in mind.  The first was to make something that I think that others would find easy to use.  The second was that everything should be visually similar, in some regards, and the third was to create a design that people would enjoy looking at.  My philosophy on this point was that if I could stare at it for hours on end and not get sick of it then it wasn’t too bad. Nevertheless, I must admit that I have never lamented my lack of computer graphics skills or the ability to draw or paint more than I have during this project. 

            The website moved on without the artistic skills I so desperately craved and specifically became a website for a small public library.  This library will probably never use this design, though I will possibly show the director based on classroom feedback.  I wanted something to have a warmer feel than what the library currently has and I was looking to put an inviting feel to the site.  It began by making a storyboard of the layout design.  I had decided to make a homepage, a teen page and a video game page.  With those pages decided on I then started to determine what would go where style-wise.  I specifically wanted photos on the site as the current libraries web design lacked these.  The teen page was something that the library needs on its own website and so I geared the page towards the technologies and influences that teens are trying out right now. 

            Working with the code was difficult at times.  In my mind I can see web creation as musical in a way.  It reminded me of a pianist getting to know a new piece of music, if it’s not worked with consistently it gets forgotten.  After long stretches of time that I did not work with the site I was rusty, especially with the tables.  They were almost my undoing.  With a little bit of review and some help I was able to get back into the flow of things though.  On another note, I was poking all around the internet looking for material that I could use for the site.  One of my eureka moments was when I found a website called Custom Sign Generator.  For me it solved my most immediate problem; my banners.  I wanted something that would make my pages have a certain quality and look to them and this site did just that.  From there I used basic html coding and relied heavily on tables and font styles.  The finished project will probably never be on the web but that’s ok, I still have a feeling of accomplishment. That’s what really matters.