A blog about creative web pixels!
activeDimensions - A blog about creative web pixels!

Beginning of my designing era

Few days back, while I was trying to recover one of Yahoo accounts for some important document, I came across my initial set of web templates that I designed 8 years back! It was year 2000 after summer vacations when my buddy, ra[y]za, explained me what exactly a web template is, and I felt a little interested too. He showed me one of his submissions that were live on FreeWebTemplates.com and couple of people downloaded/reviewed it too. I was into basic websites since 1999, thanks to ra[y]za again! But the idea of template clicked me as well and I designed 2 web templates.

I submitted the layouts on freewebtemplates.com and was waiting for my templates to appear in their showcase. Few weeks passed, I even re-submitted but no luck! After I had lost all hopes, the templates were just like any other spare file on my hard drive because I had designed them for community and not for any client/website. It was after 2-3 months when my friend told me “hey! your templates are online and they’ve reached 10 most downloaded templates” โ€“ I was way too happy to see the output. Not sure about the actual figure but I guess it scored 2500+ in 2-3 weeks.

When I came across my designs recently, it actually reminded me of my old layouts. But nevertheless โ€“ I really worked hard to improve my designing skills and MashAllah the result has been quite promising. I have taught Photoshop to more than 10 people, have even conducted workshops. Seeing hopeless faces in designing โ€“ I always used to tell people ‘it takes some time to move higher..‘ and same happened with me (:

Let me share my 2 layouts that marked the beginning of my precious skill!

Layout 1

Layout 2

For recent work, freel to visit my online portfolio: http://axdimensions.deviantart.com/gallery/

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8 comments

1 Rambler { 02.13.09 at 5:58 PM }

Interesting post…hmmm :P

From experience, I can say you’ve come a long way :D

Btw “y” would come after “z” in something you mentioned in the post and it would be doubly interesting for me ;) :P

2 Rambler { 02.13.09 at 5:59 PM }

And dude, my comments do not require PG check!

3 Em { 02.13.09 at 6:12 PM }

@Rambler
Hehe..na, its Muhammad Raza (: Thanks anyway!

4 Ammar Faheem { 02.13.09 at 6:30 PM }

You, mussu, are a gem! Ab seekh bhi le thori designing :P :P :P

5 Em { 02.13.09 at 7:00 PM }

Yup, still struggling.. ;) Lolz!

6 jingoist { 02.13.09 at 9:50 PM }

Aaalaa!!
nice post… I ll share my animations that I made…
trust me you got some really nice friends… and I got the bad ones in the early days…
they used ma skills to make money and I was just happy to see ma work online!!

7 Beginning of my designing era | Tea Break { 02.13.09 at 10:23 PM }

[...] This cup of tea was served by: ‘axdimensions’ by Em [...]

8 Em { 02.13.09 at 11:42 PM }

@jingoist
Aww..good luck for future! (:

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