www.curb-control.com (screen shot)


Curb-control, Ian Kilpatrick:
Yes, I think this thought quite often. Usually I will change my attitude or perspective on life at that point. I think about what is important, and why I am doing what I am doing. It's for love. I do this for the love of design, technology, and myself. If I am not happy doing it, I need to take a break. If I am still not happy after that something needs to change. That's when I'll change the site. I often times think that I fail at what I attempt to communicate through Curb-Control. Take, for instance, "PhotoAvailable." The new project on my site. I swear if I had a penny for every person who wrote asking what that was I would be making money off this site. But I keep it up there because I believe what I have written and attempted to communicate will connect with at least one person and that person will fully understand what I mean.




Computerlove, Christophe Martin:
During five months, we made more than 15 layouts only for the main homepage of Computerlove, so stop asking me f***in' questions ! ;) Yes, of course, it will progress. It's always the problem with any creation. What's in your head and what's staying on the paper is quite different. Although, progressively I see things changing; and my mind is clearer and clearer with my previous work. You should always look at your own designs from the previous year, if it's a good one, you will love it. If it is not, than it's just bullshit. Because the only good designs are the ones, which remain in time.



Digital Thread, Filip Stoj:
Whether I'm at work or at home, people come to Digitalthread to "keep the vibe funky," to "mix it up," and to "keep it real." So to that extent we only try to make my message more and more simple. Trust us, we practice what we preach.



Digital-web, Nick Finck:
There have been many days where I wake up and think, "I can't keep doing this, I am exhausted, I need a break." But thankfully I have several friends (you know who you are), who encourage me to keep going and who give me advice on how to improve what we have. So of course we make changes, we improve, we modify, we expand on ideas and remove the bad ideas. We improve the design and information architecture, we improve the quality of the articles. It's a constant state of flux. The community is growing, changing and evolving, if we just let our publication sit there and not change the community will grow out of us. We are about knowing our readers, and creating a site that meets their needs.




Design is Kinky, Andrew Johnston:
No I have never really gone through this to be honest. I have had plenty of times when I have just wanted to give it all up for various reasons. However, the idea behind the site, which is basically to try and educate people, has not really changed and I have never felt that it needed to. We like to keep things fresh and add new things every now and then, but I think that the core of the site will remain the same. We are constantly learning and progressing in small ways that people may not even notice. I believe in letting people take away what they want to from the site. I am not going to try to constantly change the site to meet peoples demands because it is impossible to please everyone. We have thousands of individuals coming to the site every day and they all have different ideas on what they want. To try to cater to all of them would be totally crazy, so we try to put up some good content. And if people like it then great, if they don't then maybe they will like the next thing we do or maybe not. But that is cool. Not everything you do has to be perfect or liked by everyone.




www.experimental.ro (screen shot)


Experimental Magazine, Rares Dragan:
I think we all have such days, when we wake-up tired, thinking "why are we still doing all this." Trying to immediately improve things by a complete redesign or major concept changes is not always the best way to solving the problem. Feeling empty or lost is not necessary a result of the actual state of your project. It usually helps free-riding for a while. After a short break you can get a more realistic view of the problem and the answers will come easier.


Halfproject, Drew Europeo:
Yes, and I think everyone has experienced it. We think differently. Sometimes your concept works for you, but not for everyone else. In this case, we have created many changes to the site by experimenting every year or even every month on how we are going to deliver the right message — the one we hope to transmit. This has been happening, especially since my partner and I are still trying to establish the site. We have created different approaches with intent of eventually evolving the site into something, we think, will also work for our audiences.





Inertia, Peter Hamza:
I think a good site is always evolving depending on what the users need. Of course it takes a lot of time to add and modify features regularly. And since we have jobs and go to school beside maintaining the site, we can only do a complete redesign on the main area every 12 months or so. However, we are always collecting ideas and user feedback. We put them in a bowl, mix them, and try to make the best out of that mix.

Inertia is always progressing, soon we'll start working on version 3. We'll surely introduce new features, drop some old ones that weren't so successful, and rethink the whole concept.


INfront, Justin Fox:
We're always trying to better the site and we have plans already for the new year. And during the Sydney Olympics perhaps we had a taste of what it was like for Australia to get the global respect we are looking for. In many ways we already have elevated the international perception of Australian design to some extent, but we can always do more.

There is no doubt that working on INfront is a full time job. At times the negative feedback we receive does upset me but it never amounts to the positive feedback we receive. In addition to the amount of great people I have met face to face from all over the world who have used INfront as a starting point to get into this industry. We made one massive change to the member structure on INfront recently. Somewhere along the line we lost a little focus. And I personally lost the ability to be myself, in all my blunt and honest glory on the INfront members list. We knocked our membership back from 19 people to 8 core members which was one of the hardest things we've had to do to date. We're now tighter and more focused as a result. I think it was a move we had to do in order to move forwards.



Infourm, JD hooge:
Nope. I don't spend time thinking about what I'm trying to achieve. I just keep doing what I'm doing. I've been at it for a while now and with each iteration, I have streamlined the content. Eventually I got to the point where I was comfortable and stuck with it.




www.k10k.net (screen shot)


K10k.net, Toke Nygaard:
We try to keep the website fresh, and try to really keep our goals as tight and streamlined as possible. As our idea of K10k changes, we need to change the site on an ongoing basis, too. We have those "fuck-this" moments, but we are quite good at keeping each other going.



Linkdup, Rob Corradi:
Looking back at previous versions of Linkdup is a bizarre experience. As we've always tried to improve the site where ever and when ever possible — especially in terms of implementing our visitors suggestions — the changes have felt too gradual to notice. But it's improved immensely, which isn't saying much, the first version now looks and feels just embarrassing! Up to now, Linkdup hasn't been about "innovating," mostly due to the way it came into being. It's been frustrating as one of the reasons we started it was to practice our design and build skills. However with so many links getting submitted, we've spent more time going through them than trying to do something ground-breaking with the site itself, i.e. conceptually or technically. So in a way yes, we did get to a stage of thinking, "this has to become something else" or we were going to lose interest.

The next version has already had a whole lot of planning, months in fact, and we've not even pushed a pixel about or coded anything. At the moment it's just words and stats in a 30 page Word document, which is quite sad really! But we want to get it right. We did a survey (a long and demanding one) on the site this Summer, and we were amazed at how many people took it very seriously. They got really passionate about it all, full of great suggestions and wise warnings. This information, combined with what we have learnt ourselves and what we want to experiment with, will become the framework around which the next version of the site is based. Hopefully this will allow us to vent some pent up creativity — more "jiggy" but just as functional.

Moluv, Maurice Wright:
When I first started out, the site was pretty much for me. I wanted something that I would be satisfied with, which meant having a design and format that was at least as good as what was out there at the time. Until I put the Flash URL submission area into the site at the end of November, it has gone pretty much unchanged for the year and a half that the site has been up. So, I guess in answer to the first question; I've been pretty satisfied with how the site has been received. I haven't really hit a big wall of frustration or anything like that.

I do have a strong desire to make the site better, though. The main concept was inspired mostly by the original Holodeck 73 site, where all of the updates and links were packed attractively into one page. It was a great concept. Moluv.com is similar in that way, except for when you want to look at different categories. With Flash, I plan on making that section updatable on the fly, so that the rest of the page never has to refresh. It'll make the site much faster to navigate, and hopefully it will inspire other designers to use Flash in more functional ways.




www.mediainspiration.com (screen shot)


Media Inspiration, Phil De Paulis:
Yes many of times I have gotten tired of the site. Not so much about the idea behind it, but about how I communicate my idea. My site has gone through three different distinctive design concepts since its inception. Each have brought me closer to my vision but none have really made me feel complete and satisfied about the site. I can't say...."yup that's it.. I'm done....its finished." But I guess that's what every designer goes through. Its cool for the first week but after a further evaluation you need to change it.




Netdiver, Carole Guevin:
The constant growth in visitors is an indication that I'm succeeding at transmitting and meeting expectations. I've recently relaunched the site v6.0, with a completely new interface design and back-end support (to celebrate my 6th year online). It was a huge success, and more even will be the upcoming one in order to ease updating (db driven), more content areas (i.e. articles and columns), as they are all in the lab simmering. The "I'm tired part," is altogether another ball game. Netdiver requires upward of 20+ hours a week to maintain. I visit anywhere from 350 to 500 sites a month; the review process is intensive (I check all portfolios) by updating the directories in a detailed process. Since on start, I was determined to keep the site low noise (read: no banners, no advertisment — no revenues?). TIME, is our most precious asset... sometimes I wish, I had some financial return to pay for bandwidth, backend development — and a plain reward for the quality of content our visitors keep thanking us for over and over.



Pixelsurgeon, Richard May:
Depends on the criteria and context you use to define innovation. We certainly didn't start Pixelsurgeon in order to push the limitations of Flash, or whatever. We are, for want of a better description, a magazine site. This article, that article, this bit of news, that bit of news. It's how we glue it all together that makes the difference. We use special Pixelsurgeon glue.

As mentioned before, we're constantly growing and changing. Always chipping away.




www.surfstation.lu (screen shot)


Surfstation.lu, Thomas Brodahl:
The goal of the site was, and still is, to push fresh design. We started up surfstation because we loved the design scene that was developing online. At the time it seemed like things were kind of stagnating, so we decided to make something new to pick the interest back up. It was just our way of showing our appreciation for sites like Kiiroi, K10k, and Digitalthread. We loved all those sites, but felt that there were still things left to be done. So we sketched out the sections that we wanted to make and we just went to work on it. We never thought that it would actually take off the way that it did.

What keeps us going is pretty much the same as it was when we started... "love for the community" Reading emails from people who really enjoy the site and take inspiration from what we do is an amazing thing. Now we are focusing on changing the site to make it more streamlined and easier to update, but the goal remains the same: to inspire people to go out and create.




www.superbe.org (screen shot)


Superbe, Stefano Mazza:
I'm a bit tired, yes. I need stimulus to go on. I work on stimulus. I collect stimulus. And I can't find good stuff lately. Unfortunately there's a real lack of quality, I think. I probably need a restyle to my site too. Actually I'm on it. In the meantime, I just can hope that soon "you" will give me some fresh stuff to eat.



The Best Designs, Angela Rohner:
I have never felt that my message was not being transmitted correctly. Although I did want to expand that message by adding the "Design Masters" section. Those talented individuals are behind some of the best works on the Internet, and I wanted their recognition to stand out. The list is always growing with new additions.






The Designers Network, Gavin Laking:
I kind of get that feeling every-so-often. I used to feel bad about the site, so I would then redesign the site. Later, I found that it made no real difference what the site looked like, it was it's purpose that mattered. That is not to say I don't appreciate content-less "art sites;" I love them — but I'm just not talented enough, nor do I have the time, to produce one all on my own.

These days, I sometimes get the feeling that people just don't realize how useful my site is to them. So I try to make it easier for people to find the stuff they are looking for, and when I can't get any simpler, I go through all of my backlogs and have a massive addition spree. I'd like The Designers Network to branch into making money at some point, but I really don't want to find myself caring more about silly sponsors than my visitors.



The ZINE, Cassiano Saldanha:
Yes, sometimes I need to convince myself that I need some fresh air to create. Some issues of TheZine have had 3 to 4 covers (styles), all totally different... but "time" seems to be the enemy.



Three.oh, James Widegren:
Exactly what I did, or at least tried to do — although without finding enough time to fully finish it off. I was aiming for a broader audience covering most of the media. The transition was weak, not enough impact, too cold, and the audience could see it. I wanted to do so much, but instead it was reversed. Next time, I'll find put in the right gear.



Yeahbabe.org, Paulo Lemos:
Of course! Everybody thinks about this. Last month, I was thinking about ending Yeahbabe, and start a new project. The Internet has a lot of design-related-site, so why do people enter Yeahbabe, if they have Surfstation or K10K? All design sites have the same type of news columns. I wanted to make a change, due to our target audience. Not only design related content, but including various multimedia fields. Now we have articles about movies, CDs, entertainment, and web. Of course we still have news, although we opted on a new way of showing the messages, i.e. short titles, which send the user directly to the site. I think I have progressed.