The Development
The Idea
I always enjoyed looking at other people’s online portfolios. There’s so many great talent out there, and it was inspiring to see not only other developer/designers’ works, but also how they presented them - each with their own unique style. While browsing through each portfolio I stumbled across, I would always be curious of how they built it, and what design decisions they made.
After reading an interview from the fun website, The Setup, I had an idea of reaching out to developers and designers about their websites, and interviewing them in the same fashion about the thought process behind their portfolios. Two days later, I built this:
Inspired by The Setup, this first version had a simple sidebar showcasing the most recent interviews, while the whole right side focused on the content.
Reaching out
This website would actually be the first “real” website I would try and get people to look at, so I put in a considerable amount of effort reaching out to several developers and designers who I thought had unique, well made, portfolios. Enlisting the help of Victor Mak, we’re eternally grateful to have been able to interviewed awesome people like Dan Eden, Alice Lee, and even creator of the original Twitter bird, Simon Oxley.
Version 2.0
After three months of operation, I began designing a new version of the website that focused even more on the content by removing the sidebar and emphasized sharing via social media to help our growth. The result:
This was inspired by a mixture of full-width-height articles and the beautiful simplicity of The Great Discontent. We had gotten a lot of feedback that we should put a spotlight on screenshots of each interviewee’s websites, so the redesign came with a large hero image that took over the screen as soon as the reader clicked on an interview.
The End
The Development was officially shut down on May 2014, after interviewing 32 amazing people and an audience of over 4000. The interviews are up to read anytime, so if you’re interested, take this chance to read about each and every developer and designer’s great work!