From HTML to Showit: My 25-Year Journey in Web Design

Many might not realize that I first started in the website world back in 1998. I designed many websites while working at a small agency in Chicago, including the site for The Alzheimer’s Association (they are headquartered in Chicago) as well as Experian’s first site (they used to be headquartered in Chicago before moving to California). Back then you needed to understand HTML and all of the limitations of web design. We would lay everything out in Photoshop and slice our designs into images and then code the site with an HTML Editor.

When I moved to San Francisco to work for Publicis, the design team would work closely with the developers who would use javascript, CSS and a bunch of other languages to get the desired results we wanted. As a designer you understood exactly how each site was built and how it came together. We worked on sites for Whirlpool, HP, and Lancome.

Things have obviously come a long way since then. In more recent years, I’ve done many website designs in WordPress. WordPress is a powerful platform and many of the sites out there are built on WordPress, there are many different themes and true customization options. However, there are issues in that there is a learning curve to be skilled in the platform. You also need to make sure your site is updated with the new versions and keep your plugins up to date because if you don’t, you’re at a very real risk of getting hacked and your site breaking.

The sites I’ve been currently working on are in Squarespace. It is a very easy, intuitive platform. You can add custom code if you wish but the average Squarespace builder can build their site without using that feature. It’s template driven and pretty intuitive as a drag and drop model. An advantage of using Squarespace. with my clients is they often want to update the site themselves, and it’s pretty easy to do so. It’s convenient and user friendly but it isn’t as customizable as WordPress.

My all time favorite site builder is Showit. It is a more complex version of a drag and drop editor and it has more flexibility and design options than with Squarespace or Wix. It can also combine with WordPress blogging to take advantage of all of the great features WordPress has for bloggers. In fact, I recently rebuilt my own site in Showit. I like it so much that I’m beta testing a new offer to build your site in Showit. I’m calling it Website in a Week. Since this is a beta offer for me, I’m opening it up to the first 4 clients for $1500 for up to 6 pages (plus hosting, averaging $25/month) I’ll post more details to follow, but if you’re interested jump on a call with me and I’ll explain how it works.