Tonight I had the opportunity to spend a good chunk of time working on a client’s upcoming site. It was really great to just spend the afternoon and evening designing and problem-solving; I haven’t had the chance to do that for a while. I’m really excited to show you this design when I’m finished with it, too.
As I opened up my web design folder to begin working tonight, I found myself hacking my way through woefully overgrown folders full of ancient psds and moldy html files and who knows what else. (Don’t worry Andrew, you won’t be charged for that time. 
) After finally installing some sensible organization (A folder each for “Clients,” “Blog,” and “My old sites,” with clearly delineated sub-folders for individual sites), I poked around a bit in my old websites folder. Sadly, most of the designs hidden in this folder never even saw the light of day… well, not so sadly, in a few cases. But the fact is that a large portion of my portfolio never made it to the web, making me wonder if I should cite them as examples of my work.
Even if they were never actually published, however, I know for a fact that each and every one of those shoddy old designs for fanlistings and Star Wars sites contributed a little bit to my development as a designer. So I don’t really feel like I can let them go. They’re a part of my design legacy, if you will! (Even if a few of them did feature typewriter fonts and poorly rendered lightsabers.)
If for no other reason than to amuse myself, I plan to post a few of these designs here sometime in the near future. But that time is not now, because I need to go to bed and am too lazy to take screenshots of them. I will, however, leave you with a glimpse of one of my newest “old” designs. This one hails from a year and a half ago, back when I still had Lylium.com registered and was planning on using it as my portfolio site
Click on the image below to see the full screenshot. The text in the design is just a paragraph from some essay I wrote that I grabbed to use as filler. Also, my intention in highlighting “WEBSITES” in the nav bar was to demonstrate how all of the links would look when rolled over.
Sure, it’s not perfect. I would definitely tweak things, were I to work on it again now. But there are a lot of things I really like about this design: it’s simple, clean, and fun, and it delivers impact. I’m almost tempted to adapt it into a template for my blog. But then again… designing a whole new template sounds like more fun.
So there you go. Since my portfolio is apparently never going to be updated, there is a glimpse of some of my other design work. I hope to share more soon.
May 5th, 2006 at 1:19 am
you can totally use designs that never saw the light in your portfolio. I use ones that the client eventually changed. And a number of mine were pro-bono anyway. Look at Cameron Moll, he created a design for a book and then put it in his online portfolio!
ps - i sligtly updated my portfolio erin, if you’re intersted. elfboy.com/portfolio
May 6th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Hi, Erin. Sometime I’d like to know your rates for website design, although I’m sure it will be a while before I need one. I’m feeling optomistic, however, that I’ll have publishing news and such to post. Your web work is wonderful!
May 6th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
Phil - I’m sure you’re right. If and when I ever get around to updating my portfolio, I’ll probably include some of my favorite never-used designs.
Deanna - Thanks for stopping by! I will be looking for more web design work this summer and coming school year, so I’d be happy to talk to you about it sometime soon. Can it possibly wait till after the school year ends, though?
Lol.