Have you got your first designed site, graphic, logo???

[matauri]

I've notice recently that we have had an influx of fresh youth gnawing at the bit to be web designers. Unfortunately sometimes we have to give them bad reviews to steer them on the right path, but you know what its like to be young...everything jsut has to happen 'now' :-)

So... Because we have such talented people in here, I thought we could show by way of example.

How many of you have the first website,graphic or logo that you ever did??? No polishing them up...they have to be as they were when you first put it up & thought you had done a good job :-)

So fess up pros.....lets see those skeletons !! ;-)

(I will have to dig thru some cd's for mine)



Cindy

[wenwilder]

A trudge down memory lane. I've thankfully watched as every website that I first did, minus my personal sites, be made over to appear normal. I'm not sure what normal is, but it definately wasn't what I first created.

I did, however, save the banners from the sites I made and some of the logo's (It's scary!!!). I posted them in a temp file on my site so I can quickly delete them. :)

Here's my walk down memory lane: http://www.thinkingcritically.net/temp/

[Greyhawk]

Well lets see the first logo I ever did was for the University of Victoria Ballroom Dance club. They no longer use it because I have never been paid for it. This happened to me a cuople of times so now I shy away from logos. I will try to post my first web site soon.

Greyhawk

[wenwilder]

I will try to post my first web site soon.

Greyhawk

No Procrastinating on this one Greyhawk. :)

[Greyhawk]

Ok Ok Ok I will do it tomorrow. When ever that gets here. That should be Today for Cindy, and Yesterday for you Wen.

Greyhawk

[minstrel]

Not a chance! :-)

Fortunately, that was even before the wayback machine...

[mikmik]

April 23,2002 - my first computer (didn't know how to hook up)

Nov22 - Let's see how to make a web page!

Java Applet Warning!
Nov 26 = http://factor1.net/olde/index1.html (Beware background midi (actually I know how to lower the volume now!)


Dec 04, 2002 (Day 11) = http://factor1.net/olde/
I froze my computer trying to drag'n'drop the URLs to my desktop!

1 year later, no more of a design eye, but much better on the navigation!

[carju1]

Sorry folks can't help here as my first proper public site was way back in '94 for an ISP and has long long gone - as has the company. Also as 95% of all my work in intranet not inter I can't even let you see most of my recent stuff :(

Julian

[Greyhawk]

Wow Mik where did you get that 80's hair band music?

Greyhawk

[esiegel]

I'll post this one for my 15 year old son.
It is a site he is supposed to be working on for our temple... his concept was picked over others submitted by "professional" web designers. He got this far and has kind of just left it sit. Maybe some feedback will inspire him.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze327qg/TBE.htm

[minstrel]

I can't even let you see most of my recent stuff :(
Translation: I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

(who's signed up for the next hat raid so far?)

[kenzie]

for me it was my Rugby club in college at the university of houston.
Sadly no one has rebuilt their site or even worked on it for a while now.
I turned the keys over to a fellow member when I left.

This is the first site I ever built for someone else:
www.uh.edu/~rfc

[davebarnes]

I did not design the EMASS logo, that had been created in approximately 1990.

This was the first website for the company (unless you count the 2 years of the animated "under construction" gif that preceded this website).

http://www.marketingtactics.com/English/Clients/EMASS/19961213_EMASS_Homepage.jpg

,dave

[doubleplus]

Ooooh. First design paid for - 1994. A logo - http://www.doubleplus.com/AllYourBase/PGLNLOGO.gif

This little black and white thing got me a job as a marketing director and lead me on the path I'm on today! Hopefully I'm better now (portfolio at www.doubleplus.com).

My first paid site is archived on some CD somewhere in my stacks. It was www.abchealth.com. It was okay for 1995, but the client decided his teenage son could do a better job. He put an "under construction" message up and never did a thing. Some squatter has the domain now. :(

[SyrenSong]

It's probably for the best, but The WayBack Machine doesn't even have my first site. I'll be honest and say it was positively atrocious, though.

Lots of graphics I took from other websites (before I realized that was stealing). Waaaay too many really huge graphics and too many of 'em on too many pages. (Guess that's why it's such a pet peeve of mine now. lol!) Some pages (read that "most") were nothing but a collection of links to other websites.

Oh, and I didn't even know what "ALT" tags were, let alone why they were important! Tested in other browsers? Oh, heck no! I put it together using Netscape Composer, and was terribly proud of it. Never even looked at it IE. LOL!

Every single page looked different and the navigation was minimal at best. The "Back" button was your best option for finding your way around the site.

It was AWFUL!!!!!!!!!!! ROTFL!!!!!!!!!

And you want me to try to dig up a copy of it I saved somewhere???? What are you high?????

I'll see what I can do...... ;)

[mysticlighthouse]

Okay... this is the earliest one that I can still find on the web...

http://www.geocities.com/bdenosky/Christ1

Created June 1999 at the height of the browser wars.

Wish I could still have my first one for sentimental value. It was a big 5mb one page site in 1996. I didn't have a graphics program and didn't know I needed to change image sizes, so all of my images were controlled with height and width. Oh yeah... it was a monster. I was learning by view source. Good times :-)

[mysticlighthouse]

Oh yeah... please try to not laugh too hard at the bio section pictures... thanks. ;-)

Plus anything with frames will only work in version 4 browsers... view the source and you'll see why (frames declared outside of the body tag)

[Kevnn]

My very first website is long gone now. But I do have a copy of my first all Flash website (it's still live and unchanged after about 5 years, but don't blame me! :-) ) and my first Flash presentation built for the web which was also my first attempt at using Flash at all.

website: http://www.capitalvacation.biz/home.html

presentation:http://www.holmcomputing.com/cmc/CapPresents.html

first Flash intro:http://www.holmcomputing.com/ccintro.html

first html site:http://www.holmcomputing.com/cmc/home.htm
This site includes the first two years of changes, but it mostly is in a color scheme change (maroon to blue) and added content (which doesn't all work anymore) Thanks to the way back machine post below, here's a link to what it looked like when I first put it up: http://web.archive.org/web/20010604155754/capitolmarketing.com/cmc/home.htm

[bbattino]

I am still using my original design. The site has not changed since the day it was first commissioned in November 2001.

I am sure I would have changed it by now if some specific questions could have been answered. Never got those answers.

I am fairly satisfied with the site design and content, but remember. it's from a fathers point of view.

Any constructive advice would be warmly welcome.

Regards,

BB

[jdiben]

For those of you who don't know what the wayback machine is: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

See what some of your favorite websites looked like through the years.

Joe

[picus]

Hello,
These are some of my first designs for the local government website back in 1999.
you can see the current website at http://www.ags.gob.mx
Blessings for all of you, fellow webmasters!

http://www.aguascalientesmapa.com/kiosco/Ciudad.jpg

http://www.aguascalientesmapa.com/kiosco/Ciudad.jpg

[socius]

Hi! I'm the product manager of www.alterimundi.com and here is the first website I have done four years ago, but still active!
www.andreaavena.com. I think we have done many steps from there and our last production! (www.atondinovergadanza.com)
Paolo

[gelcreative]

Here's the first website I ever created for a client www.btinternet.com/~doct/ (incorrect address on the bottom - I haven't had an AOL account for 6 years!)

Anyway, the miracle is that it's still going strong.... and believe it or not .... it's No. 3 on Google for "Health Screening" keywords, which is exactly why he doesn't want it changed!

About time he put up his prices though!

Jane
www.gel-communications.co.uk

[vwebworld]

Dec 14, 1999 version of www.vwebworld.com

http://web.archive.org/web/19991214175947/http://www.vwebworld.com/

~Roland

[J_Paul]

No Laughing or making fun.

This is the FIRST ever web design I ever tried using the geocities stuff when I was like 15.

http://images.ientrymail.com/flashnewz/quickrelblack.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/jp_xeno/

[Steven Glover]

My first logo, http://www.liquidfusion.ws/sliders.jpg

This was my first site. I did it with my dad. http://web.archive.org/web/20010613040412/isis-arts.com/product/index.htm

[Swiss Miss]

Here's mine: http://www.imabariculture.ch

Done last month. It took three days (altough I have
changed a couple of the pictures and added a few new contact links on the links page since I first did it, it's basically unchanged). I haven't touched it for a couple of weeks now.

[luvdavy]

I can't even let you see most of my recent stuff :(
Translation: I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

(who's signed up for the next hat raid so far?)

I think Minstrel will appreciate my first website...LOL

http://www.geocities.com/luvdavy/

Jan

[DrTandem1]

Okay, I dug out an old copy of one of my first attempts to design a website. That was almost four years ago, a couple of years after my wife, Kristen, expanded her skin care business to the internet. She had a webmaster through a friend of a friend on the East Coast. The site started mainly as an online brochure.

After about two years, the woman who was her webmaster decided to quit working to focus on starting a family. This left Kristen without a webmaster and no way to update her site. At the time I was extremely busy with my own unrelated work. She took an HTML class, but really didn't understand it and wanted to spend time on her business, not making a website. You can see from the bottom of the page that the site was created (taken over by me) in June of 2000 and this version was updated about six months later in January of 2001.

Being a technically inclined guy with a major in computer science, I relented and said I'd take a look. I found the coding very simple, but as you will see from my "design", I had no idea what I was doing. That didn't stop me. The original webmaster's version was much more professional looking, but I wanted to build it from the ground up. I even added a shopping cart to the site. I found the clip-art I used for the shopping cart so campy that I still use it today on the cart itself.

At the time I had only a small graphic image program which had no tools for compression, layering, etc. After a lot of exploring, I found some free on-line compression services and compressed some of the GIFs.

So, the representation that follows is my creation after six months of experience and is the earliest work of which I had a copy. The design layout was bad and the images were even worse. I did have a few things pointing in the right direction. This is only the Home page of the site, and the other pages are not on this server. Only the e-mail and cart links will actually work. Here it is as it was:

http://www.drtandem.com/first-attempt/index.htm

Oh, I did add one tag to it today to keep the robots away.

Today, the site can be found here:
http://www.lotionlady.com
The technical business name is still Aurora Botanicals, but Lotion Lady (the domain name) is also now used as a ficticious business name and is a registered trademark. Proof that you can actually improve your skills with time and knowledge.

The current site still contains deprecating tags, but it is mainly to assure that older browsers can still view the pages. You'd be surprised at how many people still use Netscape 4.7x.

[blastradius]

ok here is the first site I did for a client, actually it was my practicum for school. There are still using it a couple years later so I guess it's not too bad.

http://www.forbes-gunn.com

I will try to find my cd of projects I did in school, then I'll get to laugh and see if I want to share.

[DrTandem1]

Bbattino--

You may not be receiving answers as you don't leave specifics, such as the URL.

To others: I think a few have been less than upfront with their "skeletons".

[Steven Glover]

To others: I think a few have been less than upfront with their "skeletons".

No way you don't really think that do you? ;) I couldn't imagine that.



Also did you guys read the bottom of my page. "How about an AMD 550mhz system complete with monitor for under $500.00?" That was considered a cheap system back then. Thats too funny.

[minstrel]

I think Minstrel will appreciate my first website...LOL
Jan's David Jones Worship Site
(http://www.geocities.com/luvdavy/)
"Aaahhh!" - Homer Simpson scream
"Aaahhh-diddley!" - Ned Flanders scream
"Make it stop!!!" - Minstrel sign-of-the-cross scream

[masterpeace]

Digging out the artwork... Oh there it is... Masterpeace first logo!
http://www.masterpeace.com.au/images/emaillogo.gif

My first web site is not around any more, but my second attempt was for my kids school and that is still running. www.stjoespemberton.wa.edu.au

They update it a bit themselves now (I gave them my old copy of Dreamweaver 2 when I bought V4) but it hasn't changed much in three years...

[t94xr]

http://www.t94xr.net.nz/private/webproworld/001.png
http://www.t94xr.net.nz/private/webproworld/002.png
http://www.t94xr.net.nz/private/webproworld/003.png
http://www.t94xr.net.nz/private/webproworld/004.png
http://www.t94xr.net.nz/private/webproworld/005.png

These are my first few :D

[mikmik]

DrTandem1 wrote
To others: I think a few have been less than upfront with their "skeletons".

Yes, some of these "first' websites are better than I could do now. How about a disclaimer like computer and web experience to that point?
Isn't this to show 'newbie's' where we come from, how far we've come, that we all started out as very poor skillwise?
What about it, matauri? Is this an exercise in helping newcomers?
Did you mean "First" website, or first "Professional" website? I like the confidence of people who are not shy about how they used to be!

I want to see some hilarious first attempts! I know that when I put my FIRST site up, I was sure that I'd be rich in no time, that flash, photoshop, etc where going to be a matter of 2 -3 days practice, and within 5 or 6 weeks I was goin' 'Pro'! In three months, I'd be rich!! So, cmon!
My first:http://factor1.net/olde/index1.html
Now ( I haven't done my first full fledged 'pro' contract yet, just one for a friend who's starting a business)http://factor1.net/

To Steve : I know, those prices were bizarre, basically you get 2.5 GHz and Dual DDR for those 'top of the line' prices now, 18 - 24 mo. later.

[minstrel]

I gave them my old copy of Dreamweaver 2 when I bought V4
Can I have your old copy of v4 when you buy v5? :-)

[dax]

Sadly the first ever site I built has long gone and is not held at the Way back machine, either. This one was built the same year, though, and has long since disappeared from the web...thankfully!


Staffords of Atherstone (http://web.archive.org/web/20010202061600/http://www.staffords-of-atherstone.co.uk/)

Dax

[minstrel]

I want to see some hilarious first attempts!
...and by "hilarious", Mik means "with ale"...

I think my first attempt was made with NotePad, had everything you'll now find in "Design Peeves", and was just plain hideous - after a couple of disk crashes and a few changes of residence, that doesn't exist anywhere any more.

My second was made with the original freeware HomePage program, a very basic editor written by a cartoonist before he sold it to Allaire (?) who made it huge and expensive. That site eventually was transformed into my current one and the original domain name hijacked by a porn site.

My third also doesn't exist, as far as I know - it wasn't as ugly as the first two although I can't recall a lot about it except that it was created using MS Publisher... it was my first attempt at making a small site for someone else advertising a service I didn't really understand and I have no idea whether it helped her at all in her business. For one thing, I didn't know anything at all about promoting a site in those days.

"Dad? Why are you telling this story?" - Bart Simpson
"I like stories..." - Homer Simpson

But the moral is, "Carry a leafy branch with you wherever you go to smudge the trail."

[Ravenhawk]

I know it has been a while since I have posted to this forum but, this time I just could not refuse.

Wow, looking back on what I did the first time is strange. Although it is good to look at it from time to time, to remind me where I started at.

This is my first site that was hand coded well single page really.
http://www.dreamsabout.com/first/
This beauty is my first site done with a WYSIWYG program.
http://www.dreamsabout.com/
This was my first logo that I actually recived payment for.
http://www.smartbomb.ca/portfolio/images/graphicdes/flashpicts/pages/James-Bay-Coffee-logo_gif.htm

I have taken the liberity to update some of the faulty links though.

Now go pull out those real skeletons everyone.

[luvdavy]

I think Minstrel will appreciate my first website...LOL
Jan's David Jones Worship Site
(http://www.geocities.com/luvdavy/)
"Aaahhh!" - Homer Simpson scream
"Aaahhh-diddley!" - Ned Flanders scream
"Make it stop!!!" - Minstrel sign-of-the-cross scream

How about...
"What a maroon!"
"You must be joking!"
"I myself and deeply jealous"

I could go on, but I'll spare you. You could have
healed me....

Jan

[Greyhawk]

Raven Hawk Nice photo. The guy how took that must be very talented.

Greyhawk

[robinwilkes]

My first site was done about 4 years ago-not an ecommerce site but educational. It helped me get a job as a full time developer for one of the smaller schools in the California State University system.

[sijpie]

This is fun. I realise my first site is still up and running. Haven't looked at it for year(s).

Anyway here goes: http://uk.geocities.com/sijpie/index.html


Our mark is just a scratch, like holding up a match and try to see it burn against the sun. (JJ Cale)
(http://www.broekhuizen.me.uk)

[matauri]

Finally after rummaging through many CD's & floppies I found a fairly decent collection of my earlier work dating back to 1998. Most of it done on Publisher until about 2000. Since then I have been hand coding (which is the best thing I ever learnt!)

Warning: The graphics will prob load slow, coz there are some shockers in there !! :-)


http://activnet.org/archive/

:-)


Cindy

[minstrel]

Warning: The graphics will prob load slow, coz there are some shockers in there!!
You mean like family photos? Cindy with a purple Mohawk? or a green 'Fro from those Greenpeace protest-the-watering-of-trees-with-unfiltered-water days?

[matauri]

oopppss.....Did I leave that one in there?? ;-)



Cindy

[carju1]

Finally after rummaging through many CD's & floppies I found a fairly decent collection of my earlier work dating back to 1998. Most of it done on Publisher until about 2000. Since then I have been hand coding (which is the best thing I ever learnt!)

There was some good stuff in there for 5 years ago :)
I think my favourite was the animated BAT that is just a classic.

Julian

[matauri]

There was some good stuff in there for 5 years ago :)
I think my favourite was the animated BAT that is just a classic.

LOL... back in the days when I had no idea what a table even was! HTML, CSS, XML, ASP...what was that?? I wouldnt say I have progressed much over the years though! 5 years later & I am still using PSP because Photoshop just does not want to do what I want it to do half the time. Except now I can get tables to do marvellous things for me, and CSS & I are slowly making friends. Still havent got the hang of XML, but I think PHP & I have a real future ;-)

I was having a look at the bat today too & thinking he was cute ;-)

Today was first time I had looked at any of that stuff in about 3 years :-)
<<< breaks into song " Memories ~~~~" ;-)

I think its been cool having a look at other peoples older work. I hope all the newbies into design got to check them out. By the views of the page it looks like many users did. Thanks guys ! There have been some real funny amateur sites :-)

Yes Mik, it is meant to be their first hits at the web, their first year or 2 of designing webpages. (of course it depends on how fast they learnt!)

Now, who hasn't posted their golden oldies????

paulhiles , grease, cyanide, sualdam, brittany, janeth ????

Fess up guys ! :-)



Cindy

[labrynth_of_fire]

lets see..My first site, www.swordofthegarden.0catch.com has gone under many re do's and is my first website ever.

[WiseWizards]

Here's My First Website... Hey, What Do Ya Know?... It's My Current And Only Website!

Mikey's Town - http://MikeysTown.com

[Malachim]

Feel free to follow the links at the top of this following page for a laugh!

http://www.ackadia.com/about/about-updates.html

Ackadia has had five big revisions since I started in 1998. The first offering even has background midi, animated gifs and the ubiquitous striped "under construction" sign.

For obvious reasons I've limited the archives to just the home page.

[paulhiles]

This is actually my second website... http://members.lycos.co.uk/paulhiles/ and it appears I hadn't learnt any lessons from the first one which I seem to recall featured a spinning silver dollar, a burning torch, and an animated rabbit leaping around. I thought I'd really cracked it! ;-)

The second site (this time featuring paranormal phenomena) did actually use a Perl logging script (which I wrote all by myself!) but did very little apart from raise a few eyebrows concerning the subject matter! :c)
It's a long journey for sure!

Paul

[vfaulkner]

I had to go to the WBM for my first attempt at a 'business' site, http://web.archive.org/web/19991117200944/http://www.vfsolutions.com/ .
In early 2000, I sold the domain name to a division of Vanity Fair.
moving ahead in time...
In July of this year,2003, I was checking SEs for new/current keywords, and came across my first ever page(circa 1995-6)sitting in the top 5! (at least in the current 'dance') I dug out old passwords and then
made the old index redirect to my new pages/url. The old index/home page could not be recovered, but some pages from from my original can be found at: http://hometown.aol.com/vegif/friends.htm , I thought I was so awesome then, I cringed when I viewed as I am typing now...

[rocky1]

Welllll... I kept thinking I had wasted my first page with revisions to the RTFI site, since I kept no old material there, and while viewing V's first site, it for some reason dawned on me that the RTFI site was not my first work.

My first work was in fact a gateway page in Yahoo Geocities to the company website we had built. This was however the work that inspired my seeking more knowledge in Web Design.

http://www.geocities.com/msrw2002/msrw2002_page.html

...

[rocky1]

Backed up an double posted here!

...

[vfaulkner]

wow rocky! did you have a lot of click thrus? :-k

As a personal page/gateway to a more professional site, that humor must have been misconstrued a bit...?
The REAL site took a long time to load, but was nice.

[rocky1]

Not sure what's going on there, haven't looked at that site in I don't know when. Last time I looked I think the counter was at 47! Must be seeing allot of traffic there in Yahooooo!

Main site is the work of my mentor, an old drinking partner, (that's as in 'ale' or anything containing 'alcohol' for that matter, for mik and minstrel's benefit), as far as page layout and so forth on a considerable portion of it. I did make changes as far as wallpaper, and added considerably to the original content after initial design, however the cool homepage, and few of the other more intense page designs are his.

You can find more of his work at http://www.websymmetry.com/