What the web did for me

15 years makes a difference. I'm not saying that one of the above versions is “better” than the other, but...wait, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

(1996 image courtesy of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.)

Ahhh, HTML frames. Remember those? If you are a veteran web designer, you most likely do. Of course, “veteran” web designers are the technical equivalent of United States history. It may FEEL like we’ve been doing this forever, but compared to China...err...I mean traditional design disciplines, we’re just babies.

Nevertheless, frames, image maps, excessive use of tables, and excrusiatingly slow bandwidth are a few of the relics of that not-so-distant past that seem like part of a dream dreamt eons ago. It’s certainly not a time I wish to travel back to, although despite the limitations at the time, the limits were limitless. Huh?

Anyways, I’ve been designing for the web and other digital formats for the past 12 years. The first website I designed was in 1996. It was the final assignment and end product of a class on the subject, the first offered at my alma mater. I damn near flunked that stupid class. I even remember the face of the stupid teacher that taught it. But I digress.

The reason I damn near flunked the class was not due to the teacher or his stupid face. It was because I hated it. I had come to college to study fine art, with an interest in painting. I only entered the graphic design program because I came to the realization that I wasn’t into living under bridges (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It took me a while to warm up to commercial design and it’s constraints but even as I was starting to get more comfy with the idea, I was resisting this web design crap with all my might. To me, html was like data-entry. Noooo thanks.

Yet, ironically, here I stand. Or sit. Whatever. A designer with a great deal of passion and commitment to the web and it’s limitations, despite my moving away from it to focus more on consumer electronics and embedded software. The ideas and technologies that were born of the internet may have humble beginnings, but they have influenced, informed, or infiltrated most all aspects of today’s digital design landscape.

It taught me, and many others like me, that taking a chance with a novel, innovative idea is worthwhile, even if on first glace the prospect seems restrictive or simplistic. I still try to choose projects that push me, that challenge me to wear different hats and explore different aspects of myself and my perceived shortcomings. Besides, who wants to limit the limits of their limitations?