Journey to “portfolio version 3”
I have always known that documenting has a great impact. Ranging from documenting our sorrowful moments, happy moments, sad moments, joyful moments, and Important events, what have you. The ability to have some form of storage where our future self can revisit the experience in our mind, or people that come decades after us can grasp a bit of what our experience was like, is totally exhilarating.
One such moment I can say would be the road to the development of my Software Development online portfolio version 3. What started as a simple idea in my head to improve on my previous portfolio version has turned into months of effort, learning, and doing various exciting stuff. Yet, I’m still here with an unfinished portfolio 😂. Hilarious, I would say.
Before getting into recent happenings, let me even enlighten you on my need for version three of my portfolio site. Basically, I would say I had two reasons for embarking on this venture:
- My previous portfolio didn’t showcase my current skillset in the best way possible. It’s noteworthy that I created portfolio version 2 around the year 2020 — January, to be precise. This means it has been over two years and a couple of months from this point. Trust me, in software development, one can grow exceedingly within this short period; which I certainly did. I have worked for various companies and startups, and I have also established and built applications ranging from small-scale apps to enterprise-grade applications. At this point in my career, I definitely need a portfolio suited to my abilities. For reference sake, here is a link to my portfolio version 2 😅 (don’t laugh) obododavid.com
- I have been excited to try out GSAP Scrolltrigger (greensock.com/scrolltrigger), Three.js (threejs.org), and some “sick” animations 😂. Let me be frank, most times, my day-to-day job over the previous years has involved building some complex logic or recreating some UI that has not really made use of these technologies, and I have just been itching to try them out.
Now, ever since my journey into tech commenced, there has been some need at various times to delve a little bit into UI/UX design. These not too few, yet not too many times have made me reach a particular conclusion: “design isn’t something I particularly enjoy doing”😂. I would rather code an entire application — both frontend and backend — than spend any time at all on design. This discovery led to my first instinct to outsource the design phase. Yeah, sure, I definitely did that.
Getting highly skilled artisans takes quite a lot of money; and at that point, I wasn’t really ready to spend so much, so I contacted one of my friends to do it for me (😅 cheap labor). Well, as it turned out — and I can’t really blame him — the design was appropriate but it didn’t quite meet the awwwards standard I was aiming at. Reason being that he was short on time as he had other engagements that were, well, paying him money. At this point, I knew I would have to embark on the dreadful journey of designing it by myself.
At first, I explored; and when I mean I explored, omg, I did proper research. I kid you not when I say I looked at over a 1000 sites, from awwwards to articles that listed portfolios — the list was endless. While doing my research, I made it a habit to snap snippets of sections that I liked and hope to reproduce in my final portfolio. After this was done, I then went to the drawing board “FIGMA” (figma.com) and started designing and replicating the screenshots in other to tie them up in a way that would become unique to call them my own. Well, all our inspirations come from somewhere, as long as you don’t copy someone’s work completely then it’s alright. However, while doing this, I soon came to realize that the time needed to bring to life the design was greatly reduced by my lack of understanding of the extensive functionalities that Figma offers.
Then I decided that since my strength “lies” in coding, I was going to start coding anything I like, right there and then in the code. When the dust settled, I realized I had spent almost two months trying so many different things, yet the entire layout still didn’t just stick together.
I thought to myself that it was time to consult people who knew much better about the field. After I consulted my designer friend and one of my other mentors, it was clear I had to do the basic thing designers always do at first: “Draw the low fidelity wireframe on paper.” You see, I always skipped this — cause like I have pointed out, “I didn’t like designing” — hence was always looking for ways to cut the process short and see it done as fast as possible. Well, a house always needs a proper foundation, and I have learned that your low fidelity wireframes showing the entire design layout are the solid foundation upon which any good design is built on.
So here I am, starting by drawing the low fidelity wireframes on drawing paper. Let’s see what comes of it.
