Throughout the years since I opened this blog that I’ve written a lot about my online educational experiences at Skillcrush. I wasn’t able to complete their Ruby on Rails blueprint program because life happened. I had my very first client as a freelancer, and even though it was a fun experience, the project never went through because, again, life (on the client’s side) happened. And then from there, other things happened: my father’s shocking diagnosis, 1 work-related stuff, and most of all, new interests. 2
Not too long ago, I got a new client, and this is a business site promoting their new senior care services. This is a brand-new ballgame for me as a web developer because I’ve always built sites that were non-business/non-commercial, 3 therefore thorough research and content building and such was heavily involved from the preparations. All I received was a rough draft of a brochure and very little photos to use. I had to go through some royalty-free stock image services like Adobe Stock for me to search for more related images. More about this in an upcoming case study post.
Tying to this, I decided to go back to studying again on Skillcrush, as they have their new all-access blueprint program rather than selling individual blueprints for specific fields of study. The first phase that I’m currently studying, Visual Design, is a major reminiscent of everything I learned back in college 4 so that I can be a lot more ready and prepared for any future client projects, and of course, to be job ready. A lot of refresher courses while learning new different things and services, such as online wireframing services like UXPin. 5
However, when you are building a hobby site, such as a personal site or a blog or even a fan site, you may have a different approach. Many of the hobbyist designers/developers I know of gather their content and organize them at first, so it would be easier for them to lay out their intended site design. Others prefer building and designing first before working on their content. And then there are others who just build and add content as they go alone.I love preparing my content first before I do anything else. It’s a lot faster for me that way.
I love preparing my content first before I do anything else. It’s a lot faster for me that way. Once I have my content organized, it’s a lot easier for me to determine the type of site layout that I’m going to have based on the content.
I already began working on the second part of my new WordPress theme development tutorial, but, life happened. I still haven’t abandoned it or anything like that, so please stay tuned!
On the sidenote…
- but thank the gods he is still alive and getting better… ↩
- in particular, learning the basics of Python. ↩
- my first client project mentioned was a wedding site. ↩
- and earned my BFA for this particular field. ↩
- Back in college, wireframing was done via paper and pencil. Sometimes I still work on my wireframes on paper and pencil. ↩
October 11, 2017 @ 6:33 am
Looking forward to the turorial!
I do the layout first for the personal site, but out of necessity, organize the content first for business sites.
October 17, 2017 @ 8:32 pm
I’m backward. I think it’s a lot easier for me to determine the layout based on the content. For example, if there are images in that one particular section, I would create a layout that’s suitable for that section. Or, if there are videos, I come up with a layout draft that would suit the video displays, etc. etc. I do the same with personal sites and fan sites too.
October 18, 2017 @ 6:09 am
lol I’m very art/visuals focused XD
October 19, 2017 @ 1:21 am
Same here, but I like to balance things out (well, that’s me being a Libra LOL), so I’m focused on art/visuals, as long as they functionally work LOL. A lot is going front-end (the visuals type but knows less functioning code), many are aiming for back-end (those that want to make things work but have little or no artistic vision), and then there are folks like me who want a balance of both (full-stack) LOL. Either way, it works lol.