Someone complained that the web workflow images were missing - and indeed they were. So I went onto the old dreamhost server to find them.
And, heh, some of the stuff (old example/site designs) was pretty bad. I remember thinking at the time that they were pretty good too. I think that’s actually great though - I really think one should be constantly improving and learning new tricks.
Anyways, for fun and for nostalgia, I put together this sort of timeline - showing Dragon Labs through the ages - and some other small stuff (like April Zero). Here goes.
It started off as a small, all-purpose website, supposed to have a little bit of everything. Humor, articles, resources, tutorials, reviews, you name it. I never really got most of it finished but that was the plan.
Here was one of the first full versions. It actually took a few revisions to get here but we’ll just start from here.
The Beginning — Be sure to check out the Humor section, it’s not all full but it’s got a bunch of pretty good stuff under ‘Jokes.’
I didn’t really know how to code too well at the time, most of it is iframes tossed into a sliced layout. Worked pretty well though. Oh yeah, and at the time it was Dragon Systems.
The next version is at least loosely based on this design. This was the point when I really began to start learning coding and CSS and all. I must’ve recoded the thing differently and from scratch at least 4 or 5 times — looking pretty much the same or with minor improvements each time.
V4 Zurich
V5 Atlantis
Athena - Blog / Content page Layout
But the final version (Geneva) came out pretty nicely, and solidly coded.
This was the site that I launched the famous Octopus Engine with, and originally created it for.
For some reason (partly inspired by the Gearworx design I made), I decided to go black. In the end it turned out great, though looking at some of these drafts scares me. Seriously I think: What if I hadn’t stopped messing around and trying new things — and just gone with one of these drafts. I guess I’d have just ended up revising it sooner or later.
Most of these are documented in the web workflow part 1 article - but here is are a few iterations of the Dragon Labs design.
There must have been literally hundreds of versions. I’m glad too because eventually it resulted in the infamous X2.
Small changes and SIFR headings (they didn’t turn out to be that great though - a bit quirky) later, for May 1…
This lasted for a while till the Trinity launch, where I redesigned and recoded most of it (though it still looks similar) - for Codename Hollywood: currently at Dragon Labs.
April Zero turned out pretty nicely - It’s definitely improved over time. The first version used Expression Engine - it turned out pretty nicely for a rushed launch at the May CSS Reboot.
Then for Trinity we had Codename Pasadena. The design took months and went through a bunch of versions but in the last few weeks I just scrapped them all and made what you see now. Some of the others designs were pretty decent though.
Design 4 - Home
Design 7 - Gallery
Design 10 - Blog
I hope to keep improving — I know that even though I’ve come a long way, there are still a lot of things left to learn and do.
Comments
This place isn't ALL about me — just mostly.
Oliver
2 years, 7 months ago
Quite a change! It’s good to keep improving and building, let’s hope to see some more rockin’ designs in the not-too-distant future! ;)
Ash Haque
2 years, 7 months ago
Huge change from V7 Geneva to X Design 1, looks great though ;)
Andrew
2 years, 7 months ago
As both a (hopefully) up and coming designer/coder and a new fan of the current April Zero design, it’s really cool to see the development process. I’m just hoping my site eventually looks as nice…
Prasanth
2 years, 5 months ago
Wow! That was quite an interesting read. The jump was Geneva to X Design was breath taking. Hoping that Opdyne too will take such giant leaps! ;)
Could you tell how long you took to jump from Geneva to X Design?
Anand
2 years, 5 months ago
A few months… Maybe more.
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