Dr. Upstart…
Published May 4th, 2008
- Post Tags
- blogging + design + Upstart Blogger
...or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog.
I registered this domain in 2002, staking out my claim to a corner of the web, worried in the back of my mind that someone else may grab my little dot-com before I could. Little digging is required to see it languished for years. Indeed until 2006 it remained as simply a hosts page that said a lot of nothing.
Then I discovered Wordpress.
Maybe a little late to the game, I know. There were myriad reasons that the domain sat stagnant in the first place: career, life, the well laid plans of mice and men. Discovering Wordpress opened vistas to me. I'd been trying to teach myself CSS (see "well laid plans..." above), but I discovered that Wordpress and it's template based system allowed me to use what little CSS knowledge I had garnered to tweak existing themes.
Then came the Futurosity Magazine theme by Upstart Blogger. I believe I first saw it on a Smashing Magazine list of Wordpress themes, but however I found it it was a revelation for me.
Gone was the plain old sameness, the dull repetitive nature of so many blogs. Gone as well was the often ugly nature of ads and the business side of blogging. Here was a theme that was beautiful, and could even become a money maker without the appearance of blandness that comes with so many blogging-for-money templates.
Not only was there Futurosity Magazine, there were other equally beautiful templates: Minim, Modio, Modicus, et al. I uploaded each theme and tried it out, testing looks, and searching for the mods done by other bloggers as well.
I'm a designer by trade, but I work with print media. I've made a forays into web design, deciding time and again to hone my skills and take on a new set of tools, but I've never quite got around to it (that's a mantra for me, noticing the pattern?). When designers see great work they have wow moments, and Upstart Blogger for me was a definite "Wow!".
My little corner of the web still languishes. I've made some progress as I try to finesses the details and come to terms with why I'm here and what use I can provide among the millions of others who clog the blogosphere. But there is progress, and even if "the medium is the message" Robert Ellis and Upstart Blogger have helped to give this blogger a reason to take this dusty old domain and kickstart it.
Et Cetera
Timeline
Previously End in Tears | Drinking my Koolaid Up Next
