Basically, for more than 10 years I've been doing video editing, graphic making, and web-designing. I never went to school to teach myself any of that. I started everything I know when I was bored, stuck in the house with no life and nothing to do besides sit behind the computer and learn new things. When I first started out, it was all basically for the fun of it because I enjoyed what I did. I started making things when I was posting on wrestling forums back in the day, under the alias "Kid Shady." After making countless splash images, banners, and wallpapers of wrestlers and music artists, I felt it was time to move on, and grow up.

Well after that went away, thank god I might add, I ventured into web-designing and took a swing at that. I personally wouldn't say that I'm the best, or that I'm even good at what I do, but what matters the most is that I love to design. No matter the outcome, as long as the client was happy, I was happy. Not all the time was that true though. Sometimes I would make things that I wasn't proud of, and yet the client still loved it. I suppose that's all that matters, as long as the client likes what you did, your job is complete.

But, about last year...for the first time, I had my name out there in the design world and it meant something to me. I felt like I finally made it. I had a big name luxury brand marketing company contact me about becoming their personal designer for whatever projects he needed done. And how did he hear about me?

A friend I met back in the day on those wrestling forums, who just so happened to work at Sony Studio's in NYC.....told people that I was reliable, good at what I do, and easy to work with designer. I don't agree with that statement. I'm not that easy to work with, I don't feel I'm that good at what I do, and I'm reliable to an extent. If my personal life comes a'knockin', I'm gonna answer and not think twice. That might be my problem now because I have a grown up life. I have a child now to take care of, and basically, a wife to take care of. I can't turn into a workaholic, then what will become of my family? Doing that would make anyone crazy.

But, lets not jump off topic. I was introduced to this NY business man, and basically we talked about what I could do and what I couldn't do. He informed me that I need to get on the ball and learn what I don't know....because there is HUGE money to make in web-design. So of course, when I heard there was big money involved in what I love to do, I jumped aboard. We steered clear of what I didn't know and also practiced a little on Flash, which I DO NOT know, and made a little money. This NY business man, name is Mark by the way, also added that he's dealed with a lot of web-designers and I was the only sane one he's come across. All the other designers he's worked with have been loony, weird, and hard to work with people. I'm hard to work with to an extent but I'm no loony weirdo.

Well, I wasn't used to designing on a deadline and working with things I didn't quite understand. And, I'm not sure how other designers feel, but when I make something I want to be able to take pride in it. I want to put 100% of what I can do into the project and love the outcome. But with these NY projects I was doing....I felt so out of touch with what I was making, it just didn't feel right. Sure the money was on point, but the outcome of everything drove me nuts because I couldn't take pride in it.

So, I eventually stopped working with them because of personal issues, and the baby on the way. Right around that time, I had my friend James contact me about opening up our own websites. He'd pay for the majority of things, and I'd pretty much be doing all the work.

Well, this being my fault, I accepted the offer. He purchased web space, a domain name, and even got personalized New Era hats that said Destruktive Art on them. Mind you, with his own money.

I had many many ideas about this. I was going to have Destruktive, the t-shirt part of the company, and Destruktive Art, the web-designing part of the company. Well, everything pretty much just fell through because I wasn't able to keep up my end of the deal. Not all hope is lost though.

Then, I made a semi-serious promise to myself, not to design anymore. I was going to give up on it, move on with my life and take care of my new family. That was, until I had an offer to design for my friend Lisa, CharmersModernLife. I figured, okay I can help a friend in need out. This might be my last design so why not go for it?

The first design, was an out-of-control space design on BlogSpot, that few people liked and few people loved. We struck a deal that when she had the money, we would invest our times to creating a much bigger and better blog for her.

That might have been a huge mistake on my part. I had already told myself I didn't want to design anymore. Mainly, because I had so many different things going on that I just physically couldn't keep up with it AND because there are still plenty of things in the designing world that I don't understand. My skills are pretty limited. I mainly know beginner HTML and CSS, and VERY beginner Flash. If I didn't have Adobe Dreamweaver, I wouldn't even be designing in the first place.

So, now here's where it gets interesting. I agreed to design her blog. At first, we were going to just re-design the BlogSpot, but I've learned that Blogspot isn't exactly the best choice for blogging. WordPress is, IMO. So, I've read around online that WordPress can be uploaded to your web-server, kind of like a Forum would be uploaded. Just upload and customize, right? It's pretty technical, but WordPress isn't exactly the easiest thing to work with.

So I told her, you should purchase webspace and host WordPress on it. That way we can add way more stuff to the site, like different sections and what not. She purchased space, paid me for the designing, and spent money on WordPress for the ability to customize CSS.

Flash forward to a month or so later, I've made next to no progress. I have the design, as seen on xWEDx, but no HTML website to show for it. So originally I was planning on designing this in Photoshop, HTML'ing it, and teaching her how to update via Dreamweaver. But after we made the choice to use WordPress, I realized she wanted all the functions of a normal blog. Adding comments, tags, archiving posts and anything else that a blog automatically does for you. Learning how to do that without it automatically doing it for me was a little out of my knowledge when I was researching how to do it.

So I informed here what's happening, and she didn't want me working with her anymore. I agree, this is 110% my fault that I left her in a hole with no money, and no ability to pay her back for what she paid me. Understandably, she has all the right in the world to be upset. I would be too.

But, I often remember a quote that I learned a while back. And that is, Websites are kind of like cars. If you want to own one, you better know how to drive.

And in the process of hiring a web-designer, you should always ask the questions that might lead to problems later, IE: What do you know. When you apply at a job, they ask you your abilities and whatever previous knowledge you have for this job.

This isn't any kind of "diss" or anything against Lisa. I'm not going to take shots at her because what happened wasn't her fault, or wasn't entirely her fault. This is simply a statement, ask questions before you make any kind of movement.


With all of this said, my career in web-designing isn't over. Many people have probably heard horror stories about me but that's okay. As long as I'm still putting 100% into my projects, and the results are 100%, then my job is finished. I apologize to anyone that I may have "flaked out on," or left hanging. But this is a sincere apology. Maybe next time when someone comes to me for a design, I might just say, "Well, you need to find yourself an actual web-designer."

Thanks for reading this, and except updates on my blog. Even a new design, and updates that have nothing to do with art, or anything destruktive for that matter.