Why I am Square (A Squarespace Review)
I never stand still. Most of the time I am a three-year-old in a thirty-year-old’s body.
This perpetual curiosity drives me to a continual pursuit of the best. The best way to take pictures. The best equipment. The best web design techniques. The most beautiful landscapes. The brightest stars. The highest places.
I bring this up because I was asked to be featured for Squarespace’s new photography-focused campaign. They asked how I ended up being a professional photographer and how I found Squarespace… and it made me ponder my life for the first time in a long time.
The reason that I am a competitive photographer and the reason I am on Squarespace has the same root. A desire for the best and the beautifullest (sic).
“I have been taking pictures for as long as I remember. In my mind, then with a camera.”
The visual elements in life are food for my creative soul. I am continually frustrated by the shortcomings of cameras (or, rather, the images they help produce) to capture the emotion and beauty below the surface of every scene. I am continually experimenting with my shooting techniques and digital development to tweak and eek out just a little bit more of the full reality of the event, person, landscape, etc….
My web design history has a similarly different story. In search of the purest form of web design, I spent way too much time studying web standards and made sure that my websites were meticulously coded using only the best xhtml and css practices. I hated any sort of web design software because the code it generated was way to messy and unpredictable. In walked Squarespace disguised as a design friend of mine - Tyler Thompson, Job Design. I knew that Tyler was as meticulous as me when it came to coding. He patiently waited around as I made fun of his use of “that glorified blog host”. Eventually, though, I was convinced to give it a try. One thing led to another, and…here I am.
“Hi my name is Josh. I am a Squarespace addict.”
I cannot fully explain to you the newfound joy and comfort in this fragile little web designers heart. Squarespace is an amazing little team that cares as much as I do about web standards and moving forward in a web 2.0 world. It is so great to be able to design a site on Squarespace with as much hand coding as I desire, as much customization as I require, and be able to seemlessly integrate the coolest new dynamic content and modules.
I will not design any other way now. You shouldn’t either. If you are paying for web design from someone, they should know about it and use it too.
Josh
I have posted a collection of designs that I have done on the Squarespace platform.
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Reader Comments (4)
I hate to say I told you so, so I won't.
But seriously... I told you so, like 5 times.
It's hard not to love squarespace. It brought back the joy of web design that I lost. Good luck Josh.
But Tyler isn't this a little self promotion as apposed to a actual regular random client or customer commenting on the Squarespace? I would rather see a non "Friend" posting or talking about your company and service. I found a very disappointing experience at "Bludomain" with extremely poor customer service and 0 ability to actually speak with anyone or call anyone. IT was a extremely bad experience over there as far as what little they did for the client. They also did the same thing above they had a "Canon" famous shooter boosting about their company and service but it was a bit slanted as they did all of his hosting and design for free making it all shinny and nice. Far cry from what a actual non friend or endorsement client was getting as a average customer. Giving a very skewed opinion of the company and service. Whats the difference here since shootwithkill being your friend tyler?
reply to rmstudio,
I must say that it was indeed an advantage to have my friend (Tyler) by my side to help jump start my transition to Squarespace. He condensed four years of his own experience into a few days of showing be the ins and outs of the system.
It would have taken much more trial and error...and digging...to find what I needed if Tyler didn't help. That said, The actual designing and template tweaking was not derived from Tyler's teachings, but are wholly my own.
The ability to build very custom websites on Squarespace and still take advantage of the backend functionality (ease of editing, powerful SEO, seamless blogs and other modules) is the reason for my excitement about Squarespace.
Your comments do point out an important fact though:
A CMS will never transform anyone into a web designer!
Sorry, but you still have to know how to write code and layout solid design elements...or pay someone who does, in order to have a completely original site.
Josh