While killing time between projects in January, we decided to experiment with doing website builds in a day (Or as long as it took us to finish) while filming the entire process with a screen recorder, GoPro, and a Canon 5d Mark II. This was technically our second attempt at it since I was silly enough to start building the site with the wrong theme. Thankfully, I realized it 3 hours in and was able to still finish the website in one sitting. This is our first video to come out of it… 6 months after filming.
For the most part it’s an accurate depiction of the time it took to upload the files, make several customizations, and format all the content supplied by YL Communications, the PR firm we’ve worked with for years. As I’m sure many web developers and programmers alike will bemoan us for putting the thought out there in the public that a website can be designed, developed, and built in a very short amount of time, this was more of an exercise to show how much skill goes into it, as well as illustrate that utilizing the right tools can make for a very rapid development of something simple like a WordPress site.
As recent as 6 years ago, a site like this would have billed out at $30,000-$80,000 bucks, and there are still companies out there that charge that much for what ends up looking like garbage. Had I had enough hard drive storage, I would have designed a site from scratch, and coded it entirely from scratch into flat html files, and then integrated it with the WordPress CMS, but that would have been a 45 minute timelapse of 2 weeks worth of work. (That no one would have watched)
Thinking about learning to code? It’s really not as bad as you think! One of my personal favorite new movement Code.org. Learn to code!
-Tim
Tools & software we used to make this website build possible
Most of which is free or offers free trials.
CMS WordPress! (Free)
WordPress Theme Mono by Cudazi (Free)
Screen Recording Quicktime (And it’s free!)
Text Editor Coda
Browser for development Firefox (Free)
Design Creative Cloud
Notes Evernote (Another freebie!)
Cloud Storage Dropbox (2gb free!)
Troubleshooting
WordPress.org
Stack Overflow
Firebug
Web Developer Toolbar
Plugins
Google Analytics for WordPress
Google XML Sitemaps
Akismet
WP-PageNavi
WordPress Importer
OptionTree
Really Simple Twitter Feed Widget
Easy FancyBox
Lunch
Doc B’s Fresh Kitchen in Chicago. A tasty burger I might add.
Music
Originally by Nine Inch Nails remixed by WSE
NIN – The Beginning (WSE Remix)
NIN – The Day The World Went Away (WSE Remix)
