The Difficulties of Website Construction

Finally finished my second year of uni, and now my personal project for the next couple of weeks is to get my website sorted. It’s clear that if I’m going to get anywhere then I’ll need to have an online presence and an online portfolio of my work. I’m already somewhat behind on this; I know a handful of people on my course have already got their own websites, although thankfully I’d say they’re still in the minority at the moment, and no doubt there are loads of graphic design students throughout the country (and the world) who have already got an online portfolio.

Back in January of this year, I was actually contacted by a designer who I really admire, Julien Vallée, a motion graphics and paper sculptor extraordinaire. He saw my Classic FM stings on YouTube and sent me an email saying that he really liked my work and asked if I’d be interested in making an animation for a competiton/exhibition he was curating. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to make an animation; I would have had less than two weeks to complete it, and I had a mountain of uni work as well, so regrettably I couldn’t take him up on the offer. What really struck me though, was how by simply putting my videos on YouTube, I had been noticed, and contacted, by a professional designer, and a really good one at that. One of the things Julien asked was whether I had my own website or not, and again I had to answer no, but it made me realise how important it is to put my work out there and get it noticed by as many people as possible.

Ever since talking to Julien I’ve been determined to get my own website and to promote myself on the web, and I’ve finally got the time to do it now that the university year has finished. I agonised for months over what to call my website; I wanted a domain name that was short and simple, and most importantly something which is memorable. I considered just having matthewyoung.com or something similar, but there are lots of people named Matthew Young and it’s just not a very memorable name, there’s nothing distinctive about it. I’ve looked at the websites of lots and lots of different designers recently, and the majority use their own name as their web address, and so I wanted to do something different, When the World Zigs, Zag, as the saying goes. I considered using a pseudonym, a la Mr. Bingo, whom I admire hugely, but I struggled to come up with a name I felt really happy with. In the end I settled on ‘My My My’, as it represents my initials (Matthew Young = M.Y), it’s a well known English phrase, it’s short, and the repetition makes it really easy to remember. 

I tried to get www.mymymy.com or .co.uk, but unfortunately, surprise surprise, these were taken – although they’re not actually being used. If you visit either site you’ll see it’s just a holding page and both domain names are up for sale, the problem is that they’re charging hundreds of pounds, and I simply don’t have that much money to spend on a domain name. In the end I had to get www.mymymy.biz, which is far from ideal, but hopefully if the website turns out to be a success, and if I get some work as a result of it, then it might be worthwhile saving up to get a .com or a .co.uk instead. 

So after deciding on a domain name, and finding a web host, today I started actually constructing my own web site. I’ve never made a proper website before, so I’m learning everything completely from scratch, and so far it’s a pretty steep learning curve. I’m eager to get my website up and running as soon as is humanly possible because the D&AD Student Annual is going live any day now (should be online today apparently, but I’m seeing no evidence of it), and I want to have a link next to my work in The Annual so that people can click straight through to my website and look at the rest of my portfolio. I don’t want to miss another opportunity like I did with Julien Vallée just because I don’t have a website. So for now the priority is simply getting my work online, and I’m not too concerned with the layout and the aesthetics of the site – I’m using Indexhibit, and going for an extremely simplistic/functional approach, which to be honest I think looks pretty decent anyway. Although despite it’s simplicity it’s still been bloody difficult to set up. Once I’ve got my online portfolio set up, I can then spend the rest of the summer tweaking the design and trying to make it look just how I want it to, or at least that’s the plan.

The First of Many?

Right, finally got myself a blog. I’m about four years too late but never mind. Hopefully this will be the first post of many; I aim to blog about anything and everything that’s related to design – especially Graphic Design, Illustration and Animation. And Typography too.

I’ve also got myself a domain, mymymy.biz, and I’ll be setting up my online portfolio shortly. I aim to have it up and running by June 4th, as that’s when the D&AD Student Annual (which I’m in!) goes live, and I want to have a link in the Annual to my own website. The whole purpose of the blog is to tie in with the website and create a nice little online presence for myself.

However, before I can really devote all my attention to that, I have an exam to revise for. My ‘Design Theory’ exam is 1st June, and so I’ll be concentrating on that for the next few days, after which it’s all systems go on the web front.

Right, that’s enough procrastination now, so it’s back to drawing platonic solids.

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