Impure Creation Layouts (2014-06-07)

CD5K > FU > DWB > net > impc

All the never before seen layouts made for my previous website.

CD5K is actually the first publicly accessible website I've had since July 2009. Before this, there was Impure Creation - basically the same thing; a place to show off my work, and chat with online friends. However, it existed on a much smaller scale, since I hadn't yet had the idea to make the CDFU. Despite that, I was paralyzed with indecision about how to present the small amount of content I did have.

Impure Creation was up for a year without content, but not due to any lack of effort on my part. Here's all the ideas I whipped up in 2008, with commentary on their design. If you just want to see the layouts without context, they're all listed at the bottom of the page.

Alpha Versions

Starting in January of 2008, I decided that I'd been neglecting my personal website for too long, and started making layouts to showcase my works on.

Layout 1: Screw This
(2008-01-24 ~ 2008-01-26)

My first attempt was very simple; just a TOS, and a Flash viewer which would also load in "Others In This Category" and commentary files. I don't remember why - perhaps it was due to teenage indecisiveness - but I often didn't get very far when making these before deciding to scrap everything and start over.

Layout 2: Abandoned Demo
(2008-03-09 ~ 2008-03-14)

That's one of the more complete early prototypes, and it demonstrates a bit of my sense of humor and plans for the site. However, I also seemed to be very worried about liability and copyright, as demonstrated by these alpha versions having lengthy Terms of Service pages.

Layout 3: Huge Dictatorship
(2008-03-16 ~ 2008-03-21)

I then remembered that I had Flash, and could use it to design a graphical website header. If the header itself WAS a Flash file, there could also be a random slogan generator filled with quirky inside jokes.

Also, keep in mind that I had taught myself HTML, but not CSS. The result of that was every single one of these layouts were originally made from nested tables, in order to achieve what DIVs with borders could do (and does, in these recoded versions).

Beta Versions

I tried again in April to make a website worthy of presenting my songs and stories to the world, churning out "The Fours" in rapid succession:

Layout 4A: Hawk's Revenge
(2004-05-23 » 2008-04-21)

This one was actually a recreation of a page which I designed with Yahoo! PageBuilder back on GeoCities. It was a quick, single news post system with some links in a left column and latest uploads in the right column. Honestly, I just threw this together for fun before moving on to something serious, which is why the design is so basic - it's just a skeleton.

Layout 4B: Tasty Burger
(2008-04-28 ~ 2008-05-08)

Among my favorites. Once I'd designed it, I had a serious contender for the live website. The header is again a Flash file, featuring a corrected logo, a random slogan, and the first-ever Impure mascot: the Border Burger. Complete the sidebars, make up some lists, and we're good to go, right? Unfortunately, no; I had an even grander vision in mind.

Layout 4C: Corporate Savvy
(2008-05-14 ~ 2008-05-15)

For whatever reason, I decided to go with a more professional look. I also finally bothered to design a favicon. But it never felt quite right; It was a decent idea, but it seemed stiff - rigid, even.

I decided it was best to make something that seemed more personable.

Release Candidates

After reformatting some documents of mine into HTML and writing actual info pages to put up instead of placeholders, the next few layouts would have some actual content to be tested with.

Layout 4D: The Trio
(2008-06-09 ~ 2008-06-15)

This was closer to what I'd intended to make the entire time. It's fairly minimal, but still looks good, and has a content-first focus. However, I was still occupied with what could be.

Layout 5: Reduce Further
(2008-06-26)

It had started to become a joke. I spent so long making potential layouts, always drafting and revising, that the domain had remained completely unused.

Layout 6: Fuck Everything
(2008-06-30 ~ 2008-07-02)

Finally, I'd had enough. This was the layout that went live on the one year anniversary of the website's registration with its selected content and a MyBB forum. I still wasn't happy with the results, but it'd have to do until I made something that was definitively better.

Of course, the world working the way it does, my next attempt produced the outcome I was most satisfied with.

Final Release

I abruptly noticed that all the previous layouts were created using the exact same shades of blue for no damn reason. In my imaginary animated universe, LollerCupcake was a Soviet despot, so why not have the website reflect that?

Layout 7: Red Square
(2008-08-01)

Simple and clean, much like the works it put on display. Interestingly, I found a better-looking unused header among its files. Despite my laziness, I still had delusions of making this name into a gigantic entertainment conglomerate, firmly built atop the solid foundation known as me. I created a mockup on New Year's Day of 2009 of what a possible public version 2.0 of the website might look like.

Layout 8: Theory/Practice
(2009-01-01 ~ 2009-01-05)

My attempts at implementing that mockup were met with failure and disappointment, because I didn't know enough about making non-table-based layouts to properly code it. This was the result. Thus it was, that Layout 7 remained online until the domain expired on 2009-07-05, alongside that of the Socom Squad. It had a good run, but I ultimately didn't have much of anything to put on there.

This concludes our look back at what went on behind the scenes of my third domain name, Impure Creation. Much like my first, it was used as if websites were a one-and-done affair, serving only as a way to remember the past. After it went offline, I was busy having too much fun to stay focused on a website, but that didn't stop me from constantly creating more mockups.

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