16 Hour Site
My boyfriend is a website designer and we’ve been talking on and off for the last couple of months about creating a site for my writing. This year I finished my first novel, signed with a literary agency and started admitting to people at parties that yeah, I do something outside of my day job and yeah, that thing is writing.
Despite all these achievement, I had still failed to sit down next to the man I live with and spend an hour talking about what I wanted in a website.
I know I am lucky - most professionals want to leave their work at the office. If you live with an Engineer, she doesn’t want to come home and fix your PC. If you live with a dance teacher, he doesn’t want to spend his evenings watching you repeatedly bump into the living room table while the same thirty seconds of music plays on loop.
I should have considered myself blessed that my boyfriend was offering to design me a site on top of his normal day job. It just seemed to be one of those great offers you always mean to take up and never seem to find the time for. You know you want to do it, just when will you get around to it?
I’m beginning to think that creating a website is like deciding to get a tattoo, a piercing or changing your name. Even when you’re sure you want to do it, you need another six month’s procrastination, just to get used to the idea.
Then one day you wake up, walk into the tattoo parlour/deed pole agency/office workspace and just do it. That’s exactly what happened on Sunday when Oliver put together kimelliott.net in 16 hours.
I’d said I didn’t particularly want any images of myself on the site and Oliver came up with the idea of taking photographs of just my feet in my favourite shoes, with recognisable local spots in the background. I liked the idea of showing my personality though my footwear (alongside the rest of the female nation) and even more keeping my face off the site. I want the site to be about my writing, not how I look.
We got up early on Sunday Morning and spent the next few hours around Piccadilly Circus and St James’s park taking photographs for the site. By lunch, we were back at the flat and after a quick snack and a siesta Oliver was uploading the photos and playing about with design ideas.
I checked in on him late afternoon and he showed me what he was working on. I pointed at the ones I liked and shortly after he presented me with the current site design. I’d like to say I made dinner while he turned the Photoshop design into code, but if I’m truthful I just went downstairs to buy us a couple of bagels.
Sometime toward one am he was done. After a small glitch involving a power cut during a server back up, we went to bed. A website in sixteen hours: longer than the time it takes to get a piercing, shorter than getting a massive tattoo. I’m very grateful and very impressed.
11 Responses
Oli says...
Your shoes are most impressive… and slightly famous. Well, public at least.
I hope you enjoy the site. I know it feels a little strange when you first start posting, but it’s really fun.
mark says...
“…a young woman never afriad to push boundaries…”
“…i await eagerly, with an itchy finger poised over the mouse, for further material from the site’s mistress…”
mark elliott, sept 2006
Dean says...
Nice work guys, those shoes are pretty cool indeed.
Kim do you ever think I will get a copy?
barryd says...
I think you have discovered that geeks don’t ever leave their work behind at the office. There’s always the challenge of another toy, another site, just a “final” tiny tweak.
It’s a curse. And now you’re cursed with it too
pat says...
I think having such a helpful partner is far from a curse, you’re a lucky lady. Putting the site togther sounds like it was a lot of fun.
My wife wants to know where you bought the shoes.
Kim says...
The shoes in the picture are from Aldo, RRP around £60. I recommend them, I think she’ll look very hot and very tall!
Mickey says...
I like the shoes too. It’s nice to see some personality.
Kim says...
Thanks sweetie
Mickey says...
can you see my email? if you can, add me to msn, i’d like to chat! you know who i am right?
Kim says...
I’m guessing you’re Mark’s girlfriend…in fact I’m hoping you are otherwise I’ve no idea.
Mickey says...
yep, thats me, not a scary stalker! I was just hoping you were who I thought you were!