My first personal website: keeping things simple

by Bappy Golder

Ever since I started to learn making websites, I wanted to make a personal site. If you are a designer or a developer, it is often easy to work on various other projects and never end up finishing your own. I have finally created my personal site and I am very happy with this simple baby project.

The making story

I was required to make a website for one my university project recently. I asked my supervisor if I could make something that I will be able to use in the future, such as make a portfolio site for myself. I was initially hesitant to ask, but once I did ask, the answer was “yes”. This forced me to finish the main structure, design and the coding of the website before the semester was finished. A double whammy, I coded something that was a uni assignment and useful for a future project.  

The live version of the site has lot more alteration and functionality than what I did for the assignment. Having the design ready at hand however, made the process of the final work much smoother than I thought it would be. 

Lesson learnt from this project: 

• If you think it may work, give it a try.
  
• Combing work/study with passion can give us better and faster result.
  
  

I also extend a big thank you to my Lecturer and tutor Dr. Matthew Springer for making classes fun and being supportive, and my distant lecturer Soon-Ja Yeom for letting me work on this project as part of the course. 

I launched the website the night before the exam and that made me feel prepared enough for the exam!

Why a personal website?

Creating a personal site might seem redundant. It is true that we many other alternatives, some of which are quite effective. I however needed something, which can give control over the look, feel and function of the website. (i.e: custom design, ability to implement new technology etc). Thus, I pulled together what I knew to make my own website.

The design choice – simple website design 

I have developed a sense of appreciation for simple designs. I tried to keep things simple yet functional. I was inspired by various simply designed sites. The home page of Google’s Glass and Zen Habits are a couple among many websites that inspired me. 

Purpose and where from here

My purpose in mind now is to connect with the web community and experiment with things I learn. I am looking forward to see where this takes me.

Last Updated: 01 Nov 2013

First Published: 01 Nov 2013

Topic/Tags: Website, Technology