Well, this is hardly good news. Several months ago, my friend Tyler and I decided to join forces (much like in Voltron) and form a small web-design firm. I had done work via my codeartist design pseudonym, and he had done likewise with his SugarHouse Design name. We settled on SHD as it had some recognition factor (due in large part to Sugarhouse being a popular and hip area in Salt Lake City). The idea was simple: 50/50 site design: I’m the art guy, he’s the hard coding and business end. It was good in theory, but unfortunately, it appears that it isn’t going to take off in practice.
We both have drastically different approaches, schedules, and priorities, and in the end, I guess that figured in to the demise more than anything else. Luckily, we’re still friends and will still do work together on a project-by-project basis. I’ve seen other companies fail and watched how that ruined relationships.
So what to make of this? Well, it basically means I’m out on my own again, which is both scary and exciting. I’m taking freelance work again, in pretty much whatever design field you’d like to throw at me (okay, so most of what I expect will be web work, but I also do identity, print, etc). As this site clearly states, I am big on accessibility, so if you’re coming to me for a site that will be pixel perfect in archaic browsers, you’re looking at the wrong guy. What I will deliver is a light-weight (ie fast downloads), good looking, standards-compliant site that is accessible to all. I don’t feel it necessary to restate why I believe accessibility is so vital, and why I can live with creating a site that isn’t pixel perfect in that great curmudgeon Netscape 4… such explanations are copious on this site. But, just in case, here are a few sites with some of the benefits of implementing a standards-based site for your business or group:
- A Web Design Horror Story, from Blake Scarbrough
- Eric Meyer on why a standards-based site costs less
- The effects a CSS-based redesign of Microsoft.com would have
- The Business Benefits of Web Standards
- About Web Standards: from the WSG
- Web Standards ROI
- Web Standards for Business
- An Interview with Mike Davidson of ESPN
- Interview with Eric Meyer on Web Standards
- The Way Forward with Web Standards
Also, on the side, I’m working on something that should be beneficial and very rewarding… I’ll just tell you that it involves my writing and technical know-how.
