Handmade, Handcrafted, Handcoded
I get a fair amount of flack from friends and colleagues about my old skool practices -
- code-wise: I like to hand code, it takes longer - but I debug less.
- design-wise: I layout everything on paper (with red pencil) before it goes digital.
- illustration-wise: I always draw a tight sketch in pencil (again RED pencil) and scan it in - the sketch lives in the Photoshop document permanently — for me the sketch is the soul of the entire illustration.
I know that Dreamweaver is a great tool, and that Photoshop automatic shadows are good enough, and that most clients don’t know kerning from canola oil, but I GET something out of handcrafting xhtml/css and php, I’m not sure what it is, but I know it’s there. Those RED pencils are directly tied to my brain, the ideas aren’t hindered, they just flow, and before you mention wacom tablets, been there, done that, they’re fine, but they don’t come in red.
For now I’ll just continue my hand-crafted ways, why mess with a good thing.