Everyone that knows me knows that I love good side project, and this is my biggest one yet.

A while back I was thinking how many of my designs look very similar and I might be a bit one dimensional and not versatile enough in my design style. I figured that’s understandable really as I’m not a designer by trade and anyone who comes to me for freelance work does so as they like my “style”. However being a bit of a perfectionist it was still niggling at the back of my mind and it wouldn’t harm to improve my skillset.

Anyway this design issue combined with my desire to improve my JS skills means that I need real world examples to work on to put new skills into practice. Last summer I had the idea of creating a site full of briefs and then working on the projects and showcasing the work. I was both happy and gutted when I saw Joel Alexander had created Briefbox. It was exactly the same concept that I envisioned (minus a few differences) and Joel has done a fantastic job of rolling it out and drumming up so much interest, so well done Joel.

So my project isn’t really going to be as extensive as Briefbox and won’t be open to submissions (although I am encouraging some guest appearances). The projects will involve a mixture of design and development and stuff in between. The idea is to model the projects around my work and learning requirements  (although I’m open to suggestions) and I think the end result is going to enable me to improve by working on real world examples, not to mention the fact it’s going to be amazing from a portfolio perspective.

My initial idea was to make a project a week but that’s getting a bit carried away. I’ve limited it to around two projects a month, maybe dropping a few larger – more complex – projects in from time to time. Some of the projects might just be some basic branding while others might involve some database and SQL work so there should be stuff in there for everyone.

Without further ado Webwork is now live and you can view it here. If you’re wondering about the name it’s a play on the name  “homework” as this project is basically “homework for the web”.

I hope you enjoy looking and will keep checking back to see how it progresses. As always if you’ve any ideas, suggestions or feedback then get in touch with me.

http://webwork.webknit.co.uk/

• Learning
• Me
• Web Design
• WebKnit