And So It Begins

I never wanted to be a web designer/developer (devigner).  I thought they were a dime a dozen.  I mean come on people, look at some of the sites out there, the entry barrier is pretty low.  No, what I really wanted to be was a motion graphics professional.  MK12 was calling my name, problem was, I sucked. I quickly switched to wanting to be a video professional.  I used to give classes on Final Cut Pro 2.  I just sold my Canon GL-1 last year.

Maybe I should back up a bit, I have a degree in Engineering.  I haven’t really done anything with it.  Well, I did a few things, most notably at Apple and Palm, but those things weren’t for me.  I needed a type of job satisfaction that you can’t get when you wrap a project that doesn’t see the light of day for six to nine months.  Then one day, I saw this:

Holy cow.  That is gorgeous.  I want to do that.  So I tried my hand at web design.  I start in Illustrator.  I sucked.  I moved to Photoshop, I sucked worse.  If I couldn’t design, I thought, then I’ll have to learn the other end, the code.  I started with HTML and CSS.  Mind you, this was all happening as people were really starting to use CSS in creative ways — and blogging about it.  There was no Smashing Magazine, no motherfuton list aggregating.  There was Stylegala, CSS Zen Garden, SimpleBits, Mezzoblue, 456 Berea Street, Stop Design and A List Apart.  It seemed like new techniques were being developed daily — faux columns, sliding doors and flexible three column layouts.  It was exciting.

I started working with a designer who was so talented, I was afraid to screw up his designs with my markup.  He used to yell at me for being off by a pixel.  I had no idea why he was so pissed.  I was young, naive.  Working in his Photoshop files I started getting a bit of a better eye for design.  I started clumsily putting together my own site, Motherfuton.  It became a fun outlet and a great way to meet some incredible people.  Ryan, Brad, Keegan and Gerard from The Big Noob, Adam from Sixty Seeds, and Joshua from, well, Joshua Blankenship.

After moonlighting for a few years, learning the ropes, I made a move to a small web development shop a few miles from my house.  I went from doing HTML/CSS to Javascript to PHP/MySQL to CodeIgniter and seemingly everything in between.  I worked on a lot of projects.  Most weren’t glamourous, weren’t anything I’d show a potential client, but boy did I learn a lot.  I worked there for four years.

A few months ago, I started my own company.  Two By Two.  Again I find myself working with some incredibly talented folks.  I’m swamped, but it’s good.  I’ve found something I’m good at.  I’ve found something that gives me a great deal of satisfaction at the end of the day.  I’ve met and developed lifelong relationships with some incredible people.  I am where I am meant to be.

And so it begins.