Looking Back at 2008
For those of us that believe January 1st is the start of a new year, now is the time to look back at what’s happened in the last 365 days and what may be to come in the next 365.
The economy, thrown shoes, and the birth of my son
Honestly, 2008 ended up being a crazy year in general. The economy crashed, George Bush had shoes thrown at him, and we elected a new president (the first time that I voted for the winner). My wife and I bought a house, My daughter celebrated her 1st birthday, and my son was born healthy and hungry (he’s asleep in the chair right next to me as I’m writing this). Although I may not have kept every one of my resolutions this year, I was able to accomplish some that I thought would be less likely to be kept.
Be happy, be open, write lots.
At the beginning of ’08 I created this site and decided to dedicate myself to blogging again. I’ve done an alright job keeping up with regular posts and did my best to express some of my opinions. I also redesigned the site 4 times and just rewrote all my javascript in jQuery. My most important resolution was to be happy with the site and even though I can’t stop touching the design, I’m quite happy with the way it’s shaping up. As I promised myself, I even released my portfolio pieces under Creative Commons.
Paying respect to all the words that spilled out.
I spit out a lot of words and working hours on WillWorkforArt and to pay respect to some of that time and effort, here again, in no particular order, are 8 great posts of ’08 if you missed them:
- Good Design Can Come from Open Source Software – I’ve said it time and time again that Artists don’t need to use expensive software to express themselves.
- My Affinity for Color 1 | 2 – I love color and try to break away from my first concepts as much as I can. I even took the time to give some swatches away in .gpl format.
- The Importance of Our Public Domain – I’m encouraging artists to give away their work as crazy as that sounds. They just have to follow my lead.
- Google knows when I’ve been sleeping and knows when I’m awake – I’m pretty sure I figured google out. Someone’s in their back office laughing at the fact that they deliver the best posts to google feedreader just before bed – creating longer days online and giving them the ability to send out more ads. They do other crazy stuff too besides that.
- Unobtrusive Expand and Collapse Navigation Script Tutorial – this has gotten me a ton of traffic, ranks me #2 for document.getElementById in Google and got me featured on Smashing Magazine.
- Forcing New Windows on Users Script – I hated everyone else’s solution, so I made my own.
- Disecting Code – I admitted I had a problem with ‘inspecting’ code of almost every website I visit. It’s an addiction.
- Rethinking Brand Strategy – I hate it when people think that ‘brand’ is visual when it’s anything but.
With all these words, I still haven’t managed to let anyone convince me to put advertising on here. Wouldn’t that suck? (I’ve been approached a couple of times about purchasing space…)
Somehow in all the craziness that is life, I managed to feel inspired and create some art, something that’s been lacking for some time:
See you next year
If 2009 is anything like 2008, I think we’re in for some interesting times. I already have a couple articles ready to go and lots of plans for life.