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| I can trace
the roots of this site back to my freshman year, when I had
a lot of free time on my hands and created a basic college
student homepage. I used Netscape Navigator Gold to create
the HTML code, and borrowed graphics from wherever I could.
The site was nothing special, but it had a life of its own.
Technically, the site violated every basic rule of web design,
from different backgrounds on every site to midi files that
played continuously whether you wanted to or not. The site
may have been junky, but it was fun and was an excellent
reflection of my personality at the time.
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"David Metraux's Home Page"
Created: Fall 1996
Major Highlights: biography page, outside links, computer
components, high school photos
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I enrolled in a website
creation and management course during my sophomore
year, and this page was a direct product of that class.
I created this page using pure HTML (in notepad, of course)
and used frames (a format which I abandoned soon thereafter)
to provide a consistent navigation. I was never a fan of
this page, but looking back it was an important step as
it was my first attempt at creating a site from scratch
with a consistent design and navigation. It was also the
first time I used the title "The World of Dave",
a catchy title which summed up the reason for the website's
existence. Honesty, however, this site was really ugly.
I was looking to redesign this page shortly after I created
it.
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"The World of Dave"
Created: Fall 1997
Major Additions: online journal, resume, feedback, favorite
quotes, consistent navigation
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| To this day, I really like
this site. This site was my first attempt at creating a themed
site. You can't tell from this image, but each section of
the site had its own color, which was painstakingly matched
with the black background. This site represented a change
in tone from my previous sites, as it was "darker" than
my previous pages. Looking back, I think I designed it this
way to show the world that I had indeed arrived as a web
designer and had abandoned my "goofy" designs of
before. I also think the site design reflected my thinking
at the time, as I was not overly happy during my junior year.
I was overworked and tired of being in Syracuse, and was
counting down the days until I left for Hong Kong. Once I
returned from Hong Kong, I felt rejuvenated and was anxious
to begin work on my webpage. I began to update this page
when I realized it no longer matched my personality, so I
was forced to design something new.
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"The World of Dave"
Created: Summer 1998
Major Additions: online guestbook, pictures, family pictures,
downloadable resume, color-themed website
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As you can tell, this is my current site and I am quite
proud of it. My intentions with this site were to create
a totally content-driven site. At the time, my friends
were creating pages that were saturated with flash animations
and complex multimedia. Although I thought this was a great
concept, my major complaint was that many designers were
focusing more on their animations and less on content,
which is the actual reason people visit websites. Thus,
I made it my goal to create a totally content-driven website,
a task that I feel is even more difficult then creating
a graphically complex site. I feel I am on my way to completing
this, and once I do I will begin to add graphics, this
time to compliment the text, not substitute for it. I am
proud to say that I created every aspect of this site,
from the layout to the graphics to the content by myself.
Everything you see on this site is original. This site
also marks the debut of "davidmetraux.com", the
domain name that I will have for the rest of my life. I'd
say this site is about 85% completed, as I am still trying
to find a good balance between content and text. It is
an interesting problem, and is one that is helping me mature
as a web designer.
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"davidmetraux.com"
Created: Fall 1999
Major Additions: adventures section, picture of the month,
expanded external links, site info, enhanced "about
me" section, davidmetraux.com domain, use of HTML
4.0 and Cascading Style Sheets.
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