1997: Version 0.1
I’d been designing Websites for the family business for a couple of years and had just started working on Websites devoted to professional wrestling, and I felt that, like others, I needed a “Personal Webspace” for myself. I used the free space I got from my dial-up Internet provider, GlassCity Internet (who were great until they sold themselves to a bigger company), but it was only one page big and looked, kind of deliberately, amateurish. (Even by 1997 standards.)
1998 (possibly 1999): Version 0.5
After a while I decided to give my personal Webspace a bit more of a professional look, branching it out to multiple pages devoted to my various interests. There was some poetry on the new site, but it wasn’t really an artistic showcase yet. It looked like a lot of Geocities Websites you saw at the time, which was, again, partially by design.
2000.11.11: Version 1.0, aka. “Twisted” (example)
The .org was officially launched on this day, the day after I gave my official resignation at all the other Websites I was a part of (although I’d been “on vacation” since the first of the month). This was the first real design of my personal Webspace that was meant to look professional, and to serve as a showcase of my various artistic endeavours. I add photography to the site right away, and fiction comes at the start of the new year. I begin blogging in April of 2001, but my blog is separate from the .org at the time, hosted on Blogspot.
Spring 2002: Version 2.0, aka “Gothic” (example)
This was when I began integrating the blog into the .org for one-stop browsing. I also hosted a bulletin board, the .forum, on the site for feedback from readers and also to try to foster a community of my readers. I had to abandon the .forum when it got hacked into, though. The original Twisted design was based off of a Website a couple of friends of mine were running, but this design was more reflective of my own personality, except that I didn’t get the right shade of purple because of the monitor I had at home at the time.
Summer 2004: Version 2.1, aka “Gothic Refined” (example)
This was little more than a change in colour to a better purple, but in terms of colours and visual design I still consider this the most reflective of my own personality.
Winter 2007: Version 3.0, aka “Ivy” (example)
After finishing graduate school, I realized that the .org was, for better or worse, an extension of my professional career, and that I needed something that looked and functioned as such. The visual redesign was done to look cleaner and more professional. (This was also the first major design to integrate advertisements.) I also changed my blogging style, trying to reduce the amount of personal writing (and my annoying tendency to whine a lot and say stupid things without thinking about them) and writing in a more polished, developed style. Some might say I missed writing English papers and started writing mini-papers in each blog entry.
Spring 2010: Version 3.5, aka “Ivy Revised” (current)
Following Blogger’s decision to stop supporting FTP publishing, and having to move servers, I migrated the .org to WordPress and redesigned it visually, keeping the same basic layout but integrating more modern features such as advanced CSS and social networking links for each post.