Name: Melissa Jade prefers Mel.
Age: 29
From: North Queensland, Australia.
Descent: Italian/English.
Experience: 14 years (since 2004).
Program(s) of Choice: Adobe Photoshop CS6 and will occasionally use Adobe Illustrator CS6.
Qualification: Bachelor of Psychological Science – which has nothing to do with website design…or does it? I do know an awful lot about the human brain and what makes people tick and in this case what makes a person stay on one site and leave another due to the aesthetics and functionality… So yes I hold no credentials for my talent, but my experience is long and my work speaks for itself. My brain, however, does have the university degree to back it up!
I have been building websites since 2004, I was introduced to coding via my High School IT class when we were working with Dreamweaver. I was exposed to graphics a little before that on a forum. Not all my years of designing have I had a design site. Between 2004 – 2006 I was merely learning and doing bit roles on the school website and small design jobs for local businesses. I wasn’t great when I started, we all have that cringe-worthy graphic, but we all have to start somewhere. I kept at it and here I am today more than a decade down the line and thankfully I can say that the difference…well if I had my first work to show you all, I am not sure you’d all believe it was mine! It was that bad!
My first venture into an active website was in June 2007, I bought myself my first domain as a belated birthday present to myself. Anamarlia.com was my pride and joy, it was a blog and graphics site and a few months later I launched my first ever design site off it, Anamarlia Designs which was located at designs.anamarlia.com. Eventually, I wanted a domain for the design site and I adopted ILikeAttention.org but soon after hated it because it lacked professionalism, so I moved to AlluringDesigns.net then to Illusions-Inc.org then to our final home OctoberSky.net, Clearly it took me some time to find a home, but it takes time to find the right fit. I have not moved from this domain since and even during hiatuses or moments of madness October Sky has always been home.