Website Developer. Version 1.0
On leaving university I decided that I was not interested in pursuing a commercial career as an artist. Sculptures that are washed away with the tide are hard to sell. Not impossible, but it would have required more effort than I wanted to give it, and the very essence of what I was capturing would have been lost. I decided instead to become a website developer.
This was not as big a step as it sounds. Although I had hardly touched a computer for years, I spent most of my teenage years in my bedroom tinkering with them. I taught myself to program around age 13. I did have to get myself up to speed, so I spent my last student loan on a computer and crammed for six months before setting myself up freelance. My skill base was largely in HTML, CSS, Javascript, Java, PHP and Flash. The sites I developed at the time where largely info sites for local businesses, along with a few more exciting projects such as a flash shopping cart that sold skate trainers.
Two years later I applied for a job with Green Dot Guides, developing their Natural Collection e-commerce site. At the time this seemed to be the dream job for me. It was quite a step up; small info sites are very different from a large interactive e-commerce sites, and it took a few stressful months to get fully up to speed with the technologies the site ran on. The site ran in ASP with a MSSQL database. I had some experience in both but I learned a lot more over the next couple of years. I also had to learn many other new technologies such as XML and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). These were the wild west days of the internet with technologies changing rapidly, it has calmed down a little since then (but only a little).
I stayed at Green Dot Guides for two years before moving on.
Tags: e-commerce, freelance, Natural Collection, website developer