Website history

This website has been online in various forms since late 1997. Lets take a trip back in time and look at all the previous versions. If you have been a regular visitor over the years maybe a few of these will bring back some memories.

Secret art gallery

Version:

#9

Published:

May 2006 - now!

This is the current version. It has been built to comply with the latest accessibility guidelines as suggested by the W3C. I have used strict XHTML and CSS to code everything without the use of tables, this makes for much faster browsing times. The graphical buttons across the top of every page theme the site nicely and the improved navigation allows for thumbnails to be viewed at the same time as a large artwork. As a bonus, visitors no longer need to login to view content. This major update also sees the launch of my new domain name www.secretartgallery.com.

Simple-simple

Version:

#8

Published:

June 2004 to May 2006

Due to rising hosting costs I made my large artwork members only for this version. I didn't want to restrict access to the public but at the time I just couldn't afford not to. However while this change did stop a lot of my traffic in the short term, it eventually kept climbing anyway. This was one of my most frequently updated websites, I uploaded my latest art every week or two so there was always something new to see. My main goal with this design was to keep things plain and simple in an attempt to make my art the focus, however I think I may have gone a bit too far as it did look a little boring in parts.

Blue

Version:

#7

Published:

August 2002 to June 2004

I really loved this design, it was my first website written in ASP and it used SQL 7 as the backend database. There were loads of new features like artwork searches and emailing art to friends etc. The blue design took me weeks to work out; I wanted it to be just right. I was sad to see this version go but it was generating so much traffic that I had to close it down while I built another website that was members only.

Winged skeleton

Version:

#6

Published:

October 2001 to August 2002

This was a very basic flat HTML website with a simple design. I wanted my front page to have a large image covering almost the entire screen and I did this with a flash version of my winged skeleton drawing. There was not a lot of art on this site at this stage but this was when I started to get serious about my online gallery.

Ogga vision

Version:

#5

Published:

April 1999 to October 2001

This site was a bit of a monster, as it grew it became a mish-mash of different styles and ideas making it difficult to navigate. In addition to that, there were a lot of flash elements and frames making it a complete nightmare for accessibility. Now-a-days I refuse to work on any website that uses frames; they are bad news for many reasons. But while there were a lot of problems with this old version I did like the design of many sections.

Panels

Version:

#4

Published:

December 1998 to April 1999

This was my first attempt at coding tables in HTML and it was such a mess. It looked ok in Internet Explorer but things were all over the place in other browsers. Still I was proud of the result even though it was a headache to produce.

HyperOgga

Version:

#3

Published:

October 1998 to December 1998

This was definitely my worst design ever, needless to say, it didn't last long before I changed it.

Space

Version:

#2

Published:

January 1998 to October 1998

This was a very simple design based around the solar system. Each section was on a different planet which was a nice idea but it didn't work out neatly. There weren't the right amount of planets! I was to learn a valuable lesson from this; never force something into a rigid structure, instead it is best to let the content dictate the structure itself. A good website should be constantly changing and growing and that means the structure must change too.

Music for your eyes

Version:

#1

Published:

Late 1997

My first website was called 'Music for your eyes' and it was very basic indeed. Unfortunately I lost all traces of that with a hard drive crash. At least it taught me to always backup my work, you can never be too careful!

More web design work

See my web design portfolio to view other websites I have built.

About this website

• Website overview
• Website history