Ok Thomas - same name, but completely different opinion about what the internet is for - or should be for, anyway.
I think I stared in Freeway 1 or maybe 2, I can’t remember, but a long time ago. I built the bulk of my website/s then, when I was a professional touring musician and had some free ‘day’ time. The major chunk is still my music site, which is currently not needed, but will be again soon I hope.
I had then and still have no interest in impressing people, or doing clever things online like ordering stock, or tracking visitors so you can bombard them with adverts etc, or whatever else it is that smart designers do. For me the internet is just about simply presented, timely information, for both me and my ‘client’ organisations.
None of my sites sell anything or shout for attention. People come looking for information because someone told them it was there.
And when I say ‘clients’ I don’t mean clients like the people for whom I used to make high end video productions, and the like. I’m talking about community groups who did not then, and still do not have ANY money AT ALL to pay for a website. I have a professional attitude, but this is not a professional relationship. No-one hired me, no-one even asked me. I offered. I volunteered. I volunteer a lot. I have paid work for about 3/4 days a week but I work 7, and long hours too, because I want to try to head off the looming climate catastrophe, and that means doing a lot of networking and worthwhile work - including making sites when none exists.
You will think them clunky and old-fashioned, but they work - apart from this ‘shrinking to fit a phone screen’ thing, which I admit is a growing problem.
Yes, I could have made them in wordpress I suppose, but I’d never heard of it, if it did even exist back then, and anyway they’d probably prefer not to have any adverts at all, and Freeways keeps them clear of all that nonsense.
I remember the arrival of ‘Actions Forge Next’ and I remember I didn’t understand one single thing about it, and also thinking that I’d never need it. I didn’t think it was a luxury good. I thought it looked complicated and unnecessary - why should I spend money on something I couldn’t fathom and didn’t need? And that goes for all the other gizmos.
I have never heard the term ‘inflow-construction’ before either, and I also don’t know what it means. Maybe I will have to find out now that Freeway has gone, but that doesn’t mean that Freeway was inadequate. It was perfect from Version 1 - for me anyway.
Wordpress themes are seldom laid out the way I want. Too much white at the top, making the business part of the page too low sown, too much while between columns when I don’t want any columns, silly fonts, too much white between headers and text, text too big or too small - just not enough flexibility. And don’t tell me I can hack this in the code. I CAN’T READ CODE.
I’m not ignoring the rules. I questioning rules that have been written by people who may not know as much about communication as I do, and who think bling and clutter is a good thing.
I never use aftereffects or motion either. I’m old-school - in fact I started in film and if I cut make it happen in front of the camera, and compile the story with no more than cuts and mixes, then I think I have failed. Less really is more - no matter how many bleeps, pops and starbursts programmers dream up and cram into their products just so people will buy them.
Back in the days when I was first a musician, in the late 70s we ran the gauntlet of getting arrested late at night with posters, and bottles of glue.
That’s all a website is for me. A poster glued to a lamppost.
Best wishes
Tom
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