This site was constructed in an effort to move independently of builder websites, which are limiting and often quite expensive. I first made a personal website in Weebly, a campus club website and CV Wix, and have revisited Weebly's designs as they have updated their services over the past six years. Again, they were an important step towards building an online presence, but working on my publishing skills is becoming a greater priority. After constructing two GEOG 258 portfolios and the CSSCR Workshop Repository from scratch, I was able to establish a basic understanding of HTML and CSS structure. With that knowledge, I have moved on to building from free website templates and making them my own.
After a certain point, I ran up against the limits of what I could easily make from scratch. Working from a template allows me to hop into something that is already built and examine its architecture as I make my own modifications. Sometimes learning from another direction is the best approach. Dissecting the original designer's creation, seeing those changes happen in real-time, and learning where those connections manifest makes for an evidence-based learning experience that sticks in my mind more securely than simply reading about syntax.
My goals for this website are to begin making more advanced modifications, learn about responsive design, and to take advantage of map embedding capabilities for my projects page. One major change I've made to this template is the construction of a navbar drop menu. It's fairly straightforward from scratch, but this time I was working with someone else's architecture, and their logic was different from how I typically approach syntax construction. It's been a good exercise in problem-solving.
As for publishing, my biggest gripe with my old builder service was that it relied on app-based embedding and offered very few opportunities for direct code modification. As such, it offered little support for map publishing. I hope to play around with and eventually publish using various platforms, taking advantage of the flexibility that building from my own HTML/CSS-based webpage allows.
The body of the website is a from a template. Thanks to Supview for building this template and making it available to the public! After making some functional and aesthetic modifications, I'm feeling more confident about my publishing skills. The web resume is also from a template by Matt Brown (Things That Are Brown). Thanks also to Matt for making this pleasing, easy-to-modify document to post on my website. From scratch is the web curriculum vita, as well as all of the photography and the image-buttons on the project page. For the CV, I tried to emulate some elements from other designs that I found pleasing, and made some adjustments to make it my own. I liken this experience to playing with LEGOs, but with less external clean-up! Building from set instructions (in this case a template) can inform how to create strong structural integrity and style. Eventually, one can begin building their own robust creations. I aim to continue developing this web design skillset over the coming years, and look forward to seeing which creations come next.
Acknowledgments
Dr. Shelley Fowler - Virginia Tech: For encouraging us students to build our own perosnal websites, and being a major proponent of developing a web presence more than five years ago.
Dr. Sarah Elwood - University of Washington: For challenging me to dabble in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in an intentional way. TAing Geography 258 was among the most formative experiences I have had in nearly eight years of graduate education.
Matt Brown: For the résumé template.
Supview: For the website template.