I’m the worst freelancer in the world.
I wish I was one of those industrious web designers that can work for a focused 4 hours and produce small miracles, but alas, I am not. I never was. As I’ve already explained in My (totally) Paranoid Way of Working, design is such a heart-wrenching procedure for me, I sometimes wonder why I chose to do this for life.
For over a year, I’ve been going around claiming to be a freelance web designer and I had no real portfolio to show. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
I worked my derrière off in numerous projects throughout 2010 and I had nowhere to showcase them. On a whim, I created a Behance.net profile and started populating it with my work, but it never felt right.
During all this time, I kept working on it, on and off, based on an elusive idea I had in early 2010, an idea that said I should divide my work into two separate fields: design & content. I liked that idea a lot, however, I never found enough time to really put my soul in it and I kept pushing this particular to-do list to the bottom of my favourite GTD app.
So my portfolio design lagged. And lagged. And lagged some more. Pressing deadlines and client projects always got in the way. My own perfectionism, always a huge problem, whispered in my ear all the time that if you gonna do it girl, you must do it well.
All in all, it got me over a year to put together something that could be done in a week or less.
But I don’t really regret it. Working on this thing for so long has given me the luxury of sweating over small details that I wouldn’t normally sweat over (for example, how to create miniature Safari, Coda and Mail.app windows for the different kinds of work I’ve done).
I can now safely say that a huge burden is off my shoulders. I have a place I can call home, where I can properly showcase the projects I work on.
In that sense, Sugarenia.com was so worth the wait.
Thanks all known (and unknown) suspects for keeping up with my whining and nagging me to finish this thing.
Hat tip to all of you for the warm welcome. Now, if you want to hire me, you know where to find me.
10 comments on this post
lexx #1
12.Apr.11
Its simply beautiful.
Sugar #2
12.Apr.11
@lexx Thank you, dear! <3
klou #3
12.Apr.11
Awesome as always Sug
Lea Verou #4
12.Apr.11
Well done Sugar, I love the magnified details on the screenshots and the relevant famous quote on every project!
The “Previous project”, “next project” etc buttons could be built with CSS only (not even CSS3) with very good browser compatibility. Search for “CSS triangles” and ping me if you have any questions.
It’s really sad when a bad pre-existing logo destroys an otherwise nice website design
(I’m talking about the Marinou language school website)
Sugar #5
13.Apr.11
@klou Thanks! *hug*
@Lea You’re absolutely right, it never crossed my mind! That eradicates the need for 4 images & image preloading. Will do ASAP.
As for the logo, I feel you. One of the reasons I avoid working directly with clients
Zachary Zorbas #6
17.Apr.11
Your site is just about as fantastic as your name
Christos Papadimitriou #7
29.Jul.11
To design στο startupgreece.gov.gr είναι πάρα πολύ καλό!
Sugar #8
31.Aug.11
@Christos Thanks
Stella Milona #9
16.May.12
Το Startupgreece.com δουλεύει τελικά κανονικά ή είναι σε beta στάδιο? Btw πολύ καλή δουλειά, έχεις φοβερή αντίληψη!
Sugar #10
18.May.12
@Stella Milona
Καλημέρα! Σ’ευχαριστώ για τα καλά σου λόγια.
Δεν γνωρίζω σχετικά με το StartupGreece – αλλά καθώς βλέπω ακόμα εκεί το “beta” tag, φαντάζομαι ότι είναι όντως ακόμα σε beta
Ευχαριστώ και πάλι.