December 21, 2003 | View Comments (14) | Category: Our Thoughts
Summary: My goals for 2004 on design and other things.
Well it is getting to be that time of year again where we make false promises to ourselves. However, instead of even bothering with that kind of stuff I am just going to make some goals that I would like to reach by the end of next year. Some of them I have to keep secret because they may reveal my total lust for web domination...I mean, my total passion for creating beautifully elegant sites.
First and foremost I would love to improve my writing style. I want to develop a style that helps me become one of the strongest voices on the web for design and standards. There are many people out there who are great designers and have great ideas, but when they try to present them through words they fail. Along with the words that are presented on this site I want to provide better quality content. This can be difficult with the amount of stuff I write, but these are goals, so we gotta strive for them.
To simply say I want to improve my design skills is too cliche. I want to improve my ability to visually enhance designs while also maintaining my minimalistic tendencies. Colors are definitely another area that I need to improve upon greatly. Finding an attractive color scheme is not the easiest thing in the world for me and this may have more to do with my pickiness than anything else.
As with this site, I would also like to improve on some of the "conventional" layouts of other websites to see if they can be improved. Every type of site from e-commerce to news sites can be changed, but can their layouts be improved? That is a big thing I will be looking into next year. Users may be comfortable with current designs and why fix something if it's not broken? Same reason we invented microwaves. Sometimes there are just quicker and better ways to accomplish tasks that just have not been discovered yet.
My information architecture and usability skills could definitely use some improvements as could almost every other designer out there. Never stop trying to improve these skills. They should be daily goals. Not yearly goals.
I wouldn't be doing this kind of stuff if I didn't want to become well known out there. With that in mind I started whitespace and then the CSS Vault. Consider those steps 1 and 2. Step 3 is already in action and steps 4 and 5 are soon to follow. Some people talk about getting stuff done and some people walk to get stuff done. I will be running downhill screaming through a megaphone.
What are your goals for next year?
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Gosh, I'm just one big To Do List already.
First off:
1. Finish my roommates site (in CSS). Which will premiere in the CSS Vault, dangit. ;)
2. Recode my blog in CSS. CSS Vault. ;)
3. Provide better writing within my blog, in the admirable Margaret Cho and/or Josh Cagan sort of way.
4. Just get my blog out there. I want minions.
5. Begin working on a large variety of other projects, essentially expanding my http://www.virginmoistness.com domain, perhaps resulting in some form of SXSW recognition? Wouldn't that be lovely? But completely dream-filled.
6. Better level of understanding of CSS and XML. Would also like to learn PHP and MySQL.
7. Pick an online college to attend, working to get my BS in Web Development and/or Information Technology.
Those are the web-related bits.
Alanna (http://www.virginmoistness.com)
Alanna: I have been hearing about this mythical "roommate's site" for a bit now. Is it like one of those lochness monster things? :)
Interesting that the two of you would like to delve more deeply into XML. Definitely something to think about.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
Um..
+ Get my site redesigned and rebuilt.
+ Finish two other web projects.
+ Improve my design skills, try to master information architecture. Its more an art than science to me (many may differ on this point).
+ Try to post more often with intelligent and useful information.
+ Develop a unique writing style and voice.
Goodluck to all of us!
Sunny (http://www.thesunreport.org/)
Like Alanna, I'm always one long to-do-list. The things I'm gonna concentrate on early next year are...
1. Delve into the theories of graphic design. I've had my head in code books all year and it's time to get arty.
2. Redesign and redevelopment of my music site - hopefully after learning something from point #1.
3. Make some money. I've noticed a resurgence of people's interest and belief this year that they can make money online. Not the wads of cash banded around before the dotcom boom but enough to make it interesting.
Jamie (http://www.lifeofsmallbeer.co.uk)
Goals for '04
(after high-school saga)
Get a personal site up and running.
I would also like to dive into un-known regions of color theory and get a firmer grasp of graphic/web design.
For me content is the most powerful thing if used and presented right on a web site, so my main goals are
1.Study more graphic design, and start a design agency (very far future)
2.Learn CSS, well i know CSS, I just need practice more to use it freely.
3.Become a staff member of CSS vault????
(its ok to dream)
That is what i need to accomplish as far as the web is concerned, now i need to get that full licence aswell:)
Steven
Scrivie, I swear it's for real. I think. Maybe. Okay, I have a partial PSD composite going, but it's going. I think. Yes. Or not. Sorta. Yeah.
Resolution '04, baby!
Alanna (http://www.virginmoistness.com)
My goals for 2004 are simple.
Get Rich.
Not Die.
I also plan to manage at least 10 entries in my blog next year, but that might be wishful thinking.
Oh, and I suppose finishing this big mainframe connected websphere xsl using thing should be on my list, too.
And maybe getting one of my coworkers to stop using a thousand font tags instead of a couple of lines of CSS.
No lofty self-improvement goals; that just happens as it happens, if I tried to plan for it, it would never get done.
JC (http://www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)
Everyone is getting ready for 2004 and getting their goals set it seems. Goals are a great way to get one motivated for the following year, but it is often hard to set realistic goals. Keeping it simple, as mentioned earlier, will help you actually achieve those goals and as a result will get you psyched on reaching bigger goals. Lesson: start simple. Easier said than done. Good luck to all and Happy Holidays!
justin goodlett (http://www.skinnyj.com/weblog/)
The reason I set goals is because it allows me to see where I want to go. Same thing as when I was little and said I wanted to go to college. That was a goal.
For the web I need to set these goals so when I wakeup I have something to strive for.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
2004 will be a break out year for me. That is my only goal.
After the horrid year I have had, there is no where to go but up.
Keep an eye out, you will be hearing from me again.
Battlewax
1) Moving the zine one more step away from being about me, and one step closer to being about us.
2) Allowing the people I collaborate with the ability to take on tasks more closely inline with their true passions.
3) Finishing up the projects that should have been done years ago, but never went anywhere due to time alloted, modivation and sometimes politics.
4) To being the community as a whole closer together. I am not sure how this can be done, but it needs to be done... there is no sence in making competition out of what would otherwise be collagues and friends.
Nick (http://www.digital-web.com)
Scrivs, I don't really know you at all, other than being the author of whitespace, but I must say I'm proud of you. You've got some excellent content, a good writing voice, and you speak as yourself instead of hiding behind the face of your dot-com -- which is what most people do.
When I (re)started Skyzyx.com last March, one of my goals was to be mentioned on Zeldman.com within 6 months. Well, that hasn't happened yet for me, but it has for you -- as far as the CSS Vault goes. Congrats.
Some of my goals are:
- To improve my Web Resources section to be a grail of web standards information among web designers.
- To improve my Browsers section to really make a push for Mozilla and other standards-compliant browsers
- To think about what I write a little more before I actually publish it.
- To improve my graphics and Flash skills.
- To improve my PHP, MySQL, and XML/XSLT skills.
- To learn more about XUL and the Mozilla Application Framework.
- To make it onto several people's regular reads lists.
- To really get my web design career going.
- To make a huge push for web standards, and to be considered a major voice in the web community.
Many of these are goals from last year that I'm still pursuing. Sooner or later, we'll get there. And if you don't mind, I'd like to steal your line: "Running downhill, screaming through a megaphone" for a future blog posting. =)
Ryan Parman (http://www.skyzyx.com)
Well getting posted on Zeldman knocked off one of the goals I had and I didn't even send him an email to link to me.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
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#1
Interesting. As this is actually my first few months in the web development, I haven't really thought about goals. I'll probably try and improve my knowledge of XML and friends, as well as client languages like PHP, and merge them together with a domain I'll probably get for my birthday (March). Everything seems extremely exciting at the moment, although it might seem like that all the time, I don't know! :)
By this time next year, I want to have a firm grasp and some working examples of XML and CSS at its best, and have a blog that appears on several people's regular reads list.
David House