For me it all started in the year of 2006. I made an account on hi5.com, a social network that was popular back then. Hi5 let you customize your profile with the use of HTML and CSS. I started by googling “HTML Tutorials” and “CSS Tutorials” and began to snoop around the web for any type of useful info about web coding. The first site I looked in to was www.w3schools.com which I eventually found out it’s probably one the worst places to learn about web coding. Regardless of that though the lessons on w3schools gave me a very basic grasp of how HTML & CSS works which helped me grow from there on my own or with the help of more advanced tutorials.
With the use of very basic coding I made my first profile layout which, to be honest, looked absolutely horrifying. But for me that meant a lot, because it was my first actual work using a programming language to make something look better than just black n’ white text. At the age of fifteen those almost insignificant lines of code in my profile made me feel unbelievably motivated, proud and happy about myself; it’s those feelings up to this day that makes me certain that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Not long after I started learning HTML/CSS I got myself a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2. The same story happened with Photoshop as it did with HTML and CSS. I searched on YouTube “Photoshop Tutorials” and I started of with some amazing lessons from IceFlow Studios. Due to the fact that I had never used nor seen a program with such complexity I felt overwhelmed and lost. Despite Photoshop’s difficulty, with a few buckets of patience and lots of help from IceFlow Studios I made it through the first and only rough patch that, in my opinion, Photoshop has. After you actually understand how the basic tools work it’s easy from there. What I like with Graphic Designing and Coding is that you can tweak and modify something ugly and cluttered for several minutes, hours or even days and make it absolutely amazing. I remember making random web layouts for some friends and they were actually very good. I was astonished and blown away by the fact that someone with almost no experience and knowledge like me could make something so beautiful with so little skill.
And that is the beginning of graphic designing and coding becoming a huge part of my life. I’ll see you in the next part.
To be continued…
Captain's Space 