Topical and Tropical

Rants, Raves, and Other Mindless Babble

I Have Changed

Posted on July 15, 2010 in Daily Life, Design | comment bubble

Over the past few years I’ve really been examining my career as an artist and designer and I’ve noticed something… I have really changed since I started doing web design back in 1999. When I first started designing and building sites I was beaming with enthusiasm because I could make a frame-based website or make a fancy image map. I was completely oblivious to the world of usability and information architecture, and I was more concerned about making it look pretty. You do have to cut me some slack though because after all I was working in a heavily visited tourist area of Door County, Wisconsin where your business had to stand out from the others in order to get noticed.

Now as I sit here and create websites for our partners on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, I am not only a long distance away from home, but I’m also long ways away from that green designer fresh out of college that made amateurish mistakes. I have become more interested in creating strong relationships with clients and producing sites that are simple, informative, and easy to navigate. I’m not so much concerned about the visual look of the site as I am how the content is arranged and styled. Don’t get me wrong, the visual is what hooks the viewer’s eye, but it’s the content that keeps them there.

Even in my freelancing career, I’ve changed quite a bit. It used to be that I would take on any opportunity that comes my way. That was mainly due to the fact that I was a poor college graduate with a mountain of student loans! My estimates were low, the quality of my work was just ok, and I was beginning to get my name out there in the design and development community. Then once I started at Notre Dame and started a family, the number of hours I was able to spend on work outside the norm of my full-time job started to dwindle. Now that things have settled a bit, I’m taking on more freelance work, but my selection process is different this time around. I’m no longer concerned about fattening my wallet with jobs that I don’t necessarily vest any interest in. I pick and choose who I want to work with from the standpoint of whether or not it’s going to fulfill a creative desire that I may have at that particular moment in time and if the work is going to excite me.

I guess what it all boils down to, and I’ve said this to many people throughout my career, that I do what I do because “I like to build things.” What I’m building has changed through the years. I went from creating lego structures as a kid, to student newsletters in high school, to wood sculptures in college, to websites at my first job out of college, and now to connections with people, collaborative environments, and user-centered products.

What a crazy ride. Who knows what’s in store next.

1 Comments

On August 7, 2010, Pat Godwin said:

Your design on my site is tremendous. I’m flattered that you choose to work with me and I’m thrilled with your talent, ambition and friendship. Keep up the good work!