Web Design and Mole Removal and Engine Repairs! Oh My!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 8:53PM I'm a "Do-It-Yourself" kind of guy. When the washing machine breaks I'd rather spend hours Googling the problem, discovering how to fix it and ordering the parts from some website instead of spending an hour of someone else's time and $100. At the end of the process I always end up saying the same thing, "Well that was stupid! Next time I'll spend the money." At least now I know how to repair a washing machine, a microwave, computer, speakers, (not a printer -- I ruined that), various NON-ENGINE related parts of cars, etc. When I went to the dermatologist and had a mole removed, I swear the thought crossed my mind, "That doesn't look so difficult, I bet I could do that myself next time." (Not so much with the vasectomy though.)
When it became apparent that Brenna and I wanted a website beyond the general off-the-shelf template, we searched the web for weeks, visited hundreds of sites,and found Squarespace. We're loving it so far. It looks nice, it's adaptable, intuitive. It's not free, but I think that falls into the you-get-what-you-pay-for category. We had actually already paid for a year of Typepad, but liked the look and feel of Squarespace so much that we decided to chuck it and defect.
Now, to find the style that says "Uncertainty," with a certain confidence. The title never felt so appropriate. We spent a Saturday morning wandering through the web looking for someone's else's vision that we could copy. No luck. Then, we wandered through the house, looking for anything we liked. We didn't seem to like anything. I don't remember what happened next. I think the sun went down, and the wine came out.
No matter how easy a template is to use, if you don't have a clear vision it's not going to work. By my third glass of wine my vision was blurred, and I gave up completely. I think I could've figured out a lot of the technical stuff and I have an okay eye for design, but, drunkenness aside, this one falls into the "mole removal" and "engine" categories -- call in a professional. There are others with much better design sense who already have the technical skills to customize our site, and who possibly have a higher tolerance for alcohol than I do.
It was important to us to find a web designer who's familiar with Squarespace. We scoured the web and found Melody Watson. (I'm using the royal "We" here. It was really Brenna who found Melody's site, but California's a community property state, so she's half my find -- by law.) We're just at the beginning, but since the whole point of this website is to document our journey, the creation of the website is now part of the website.
Nice to meet you Melody.
Reader Comments (3)
Nice to meet you, too!
I'm also a "Process Girl" and immediately fell in love with your idea to document your journey. So this morning, having put out the other fires that irritatingly kept me from your mock-up drafting I've been enjoying, I thought I'd just peek over here and see if there were any updates. It's got something to do with my way of getting as deeply into a design groove as possible. Won't go so far as to call it "channeling" your voices but reading a bit of something either of you have written helps me immerse myself a bit more in the feeling I want to have while I design.
Heh - now trying to remove the thoughts of moles and vasectomies from my mind, I'm laughing at the thought of myself as shared "community property" and settling in for a fun session that will lead toward making your ideas a reality. (Wine-induced and otherwise.)
Thank you for the honor of choosing me to work with you.
This was originally posted weeks ago, before we'd split your blog into sections so you could blog individually. One thing I don't know how to do with Squarespace, yet, is change the date on a comment post. So I'll just add another rambly note!
i actually see nothing but blankness on your website. not until i scroll down do i see anything. i clicked around link after link, thinking that each was doing nothing but pulling up a blank page. finally i happened to scroll down once and i realized that the links WERE going somewhere. i just tried looking at this in mozilla, and it worked fine there, so maybe this is just a bug with internet explorer.
@ anonymous, thanks for letting us know. We'll check it out.