A Year of Blogging

2021-04-12

April 12th 2021 marks my one year anniversary of blogging. It’s been a fun and immensely rewarding journey.

Early Days

This site started development back in November-ish of 2019 and was originally going to be effectively just a digital business card. Just a one page site with my name and places to contact me. Continual redesigns and a general feeling of just not quite right repeatedly pushed the project back however into the new year. With the Pandemic setting in not long after, I found myself with a lot more free time to work on other projects in lieu of time spent on a daily commute. I decided to revisit this site and perhaps flesh it out more, perhaps then I would get something I was happy with.

Having looked elsewhere online for inspiration on how others were designing and running their personal sites, I noticed that many had their own blog sections. The purpose of their respective blogs varied wildly: for some it was a means to work through technical challenges in public, others wanted to share their opinions on whatever the current matter of the day was, some were simply just looking for a place to vent.

The more I read the more the idea of a blog began to interest me so I decided to give it a go. Finding something to write about though was a bit of an issue, I didn’t want to spent weeks putting together a tutorial/guide on a topic only the realise blogging wasn’t for me. Instead I settled on something simple that I hold near to my heart.

On Reading was published shortly thereafter.

A Year On

In the time since that first post I’ve kept up a somewhat regular habit of writing at least once a month, gradually increasing the pace the more comfortable I’ve gotten. Whether that it be on something technical or just something I think is cool, blogging has become my go-to for figuring out a problem or issue. The act of writing forces you to confront a topic in a way that simply mulling it over doesn’t. And, since I don’t want to publish something that is unsubstantiated, I need to do my research first. A process that means I get to truly grapple with a topic and you (hopefully) get a better article out of it.

As I discussed more thoroughly in The Value of A Personal Site, there isn’t just benefit in the act of blogging, there’s also benefits in simply having a personal site in the first place. A personal site is somewhat of a digital scratchpad, if I want to redesign or trial something I can. This isn’t a deliverable for a client that is handed over and then never touched by me again; this is a place to experiment.

This site has gone through more redesigns than I could even bother to count or remember anymore. Yet despite this, each one has been of value. For every change made there is a little jewel of knowledge; whether that be on what makes good design, how to use CSS effectively, how to use CSS sparingly, the areas where value can be gained are endless. This site may be in a constant state of flux but I’m OK with that because each little change forms part of a new skill, a new understanding of all the little areas that make up my field.

Thank you to everyone who has read and supported this project so far. It’s always gratifying reading emails I get from readers who have found some value in a post; I hope to keep on writing articles on topics worth your time for many more years to come.