Sometimes I feel like a grandpa:
“Sonny, when I was your age we had to code our HTML in NOTEPAD! Dreamweaver shmeamweaver.
My handwritten code from the home page of my James Bond Web site
By golly, we did it by hand.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It’s true though. My love for making Web pages began with a high school Web programming class taught on Netscape 1.0. I always considered it a point of pride that I had designed every aspect of the site myself.
No fancy programs: just lots of hand-written </>, img src and a hrefs…+ this cool new program called Photoshop that let me make “state of the art” graphics.
..some of my self-coded and designed sites that are still online…
My James Bond Fan Site – Roosevelt Island Merchandise Store
Main Street Theater Web Site – Real Backpacking Guide
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My old version of Adventures of a GoodMan was completely hand coded in html and designed in Photoshop.
My Breakthrough: “Let Someone Else Do It!”
One day around a year ago, a good childhood friend of mine helped me realize that I needed to let go of this pride and let other people do the heavy-lifting for me. That way, I can concentrate on creating content, which is my favorite part anyway.
I went to Freelancer.com and after some searching found Ufuk (not pronounced as you think it is, he once told me) – my custom WordPress coding master in in South France. Answering my post for “HTML Photo Site w/Wordpress Travelblog Overhaul Needed, ” Ufuk and I would work side by side for six months creating the site of my dreams.
An early design sketch of an idea I had for a new take on a blog home page.
The Design Disaster That Almost Was
It’s easy to get swept up in what is presented to you and not consider the alternatives. When I first started working with Ufuk, he suggested a designer that he had worked with before. I really had no idea what I was doing and the early mockups reflected this. However, it was all I knew and I continued along with it. The first draft was the disaster you see below.
I still can't believe I ever considered this as a possible design for the site. At the same time, it allowed me to realize the potential.
At one point, I was going into Photoshop and changing the designer’s psd to reflect my idea of what I wanted. It was after I came up with this mockup that I made the honest realization that what I wanted was beyond both my skillset and that of the designer.
This design was the tipping-point that made me realize I had to change my design approach
Soon after I collected my thoughts and posted a new job for a “Web site header redesign and content box creation.” Romanian Vlad – aka ProLV - answered the call and provided me with a mockup that looked just like what I had in mind. It was the site I always wanted throughout my 20s but never had the skillset to create. Sleek. Modern. Shiny. Techy-looking.
Vlad, aka ProLV, provided me with this initial mockup of his vision for Adventures of a GoodMan before I hired him to complete it.
Coding the Site
Ufuk had no small task ahead of him, converting all of the photo galleries in the static site into a WordPress NextGen gallery. I kept asking him for ways to hard code pages and his repose was always “no, we’re going to automate it.” This has proved to make my life infinitely easier.
Over the months, Ufuk coded an amazing custom WordPress theme, rewrote plugins and helped create what I believe to be a completely unique take on a travel, photography and storytelling blog.
Ufuk programmed a custom control panel to control many of the key functions of the blog. Weptile is the name of his company: short for Web Reptile.
So If It Ain’t Broke, Why Fix It?
I’ve learned so much since about what I want this site to be since April 2011, when my freelancer-created version officially went live. My design tastes have changed: as has my vision for the site. Currently, I have calls for designers out at Freelancer, Odesk and Elance and hope to find a designer soon who create what I imagine.
Stay tuned…Ufuk is standing by to get started on the coding.
A mockup of an idea I once had for how to improve the site design. It's looking back on things like this that make me remember why sometimes it's just easier to let someone else do it for you.
A HUGE THANKS TO…
I would love to hear any of your success stories from hiring a freelancer in the comments section
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