06-09-2002 I'm on a train to Windermere with my girlfriend for the weekend. It's a long journey and she sometimes passes the time by creating the most amazing doodles. They start out as little shapes and squiggles or by drawing around an object - say a paperclip or my fingers - and then adding to them in abstract or inspired directions, creating something new and wonderful. Over the course of the journey I do some myself. I don't rate them greatly compared to her doodles, but then I'm over-familiar with my style. Also I don't draw often enough to get a relaxed fluidity in my hand and my head. I want to do this more often because I enjoy it and I want to improve. 26-09-2002 I buy the domain name. I get .co.uk not just because I'm from the UK but because it rhymes - it trips off the tounge, it's almost lyrical. And it's cheaper than com net and org ;-) 16-10-2002 I've sketched out the site design - fairly simple and monochromatic. I'm more of a programmer than a designer, and my designs tend not to be the best: they're efficient with decent user interface design, but not very arty. I've tried to make this one as I would imagine a designer would want to make a site: hence breaking of certain rules of good web design! (the site pops up from the first page [terrible for search engines], favouring graphical text over HTML text [ditto], using tiny fonts [likewise]). The impression I want to give is that of a site that is itself a doodle (which to a degree it was) but with cleaner lines. The way I'll achieve balance between crispness and doodleness is in these large white borders around the site: they'll contain a (randomly picked) doodle made specifically for these borders. 18-10-2002 I'm doing all of the sites navigation as scanned-in handwriting, including the logo and (groan) archive. I'm over-familiar with my handwriting, so it just doesn't look right. I don't mind it too much for the navigation nor the archive, but the site logo just looks awfull to me, no matter how many times I do it. So I got Emma to do it for me instead - her handwriting is perfect: tall, thin and interesting. Mine would probably look fine, but I just can't look at it objectively. 20-10-2002 Handwrote all the numbers, days and months for the Archive today Scanned, cropped, treated and coded them. Took bloody forever but it looks great. 01-11-2002 We go live! The first doodle is one of many Emma made while she was staying at my place. The first weekday of every month will be hers until I run out of them. 04-11-2002 We've just started logging the number of people who hit the launch page (from 2pm to midnight we get 49 visitors). 05-11-2002 Submitted the site to various search engines and indexes, and submitted the site to k10k.net's "matchmaker" scheme, asking people to send in doodle submissions. Considering k10k is such a popular site, having a link to this project occasionally appear on it's homepage should be hugely beneficial. 06-11-2002 The site was approved for k10k.net's "matchmaker" scheme at around 10pm last night. We'd already had an expected 102 visitors up until that point, but from then until midnight we got 644 visitors - that's 1 visitor every 11 seconds! 07-11-2002 Yesterday was our first full 24 hour day on k10k.net's "matchmaker" scheme. We had over 1600 visitors. Crikey! 10-11-2002 yahoo.com have really, really fast-tracked us through their system as we were listed in under a week here, despite not paying for the privilege. Not only that but we made it into their "new and notable" list today with the comment "etch a sketch onto the collective conscious". 11-11-2002 At the end of our first full week we've had over 11700 visitors. Blimey. I don't expect this to last of course, it should settle down to a steady rate: regular visitors, a balance of newcomers and leavers, plus once-only visitors. To be honest I'm not really bothered - if people want to look around, that's cool. If they submit doodles, that's great. If they don't, that's cool too: I get to put more of my own doodles up, encouraging me to draw more often. 14-11-2002 The site features in The Guardian's Web Watch section under "Six of the Best". Dunno if it was in the physical newspaper, but it is here on Guardian Unlimited. What can I say except: fuckin' ace! 18-11-2002 Down to about 200 visitors per day. The older the project gets on k10k.net's "matchmaker" scheme the less often it gets shown (to the point where it doesn't get shown at all). It expires after 30 days until I give it a poke, whereupon it becomes top of the pile again - I expect visitor numbers will go up (and slowly back down) again when (and whenever) that happens, though not as much as the first time (obviously). 23-11-2002 We're in the link's section of www.halfproject.com under "Illustrators", which is good. 25-11-2002 I've doodled a bunch of banner and button adverts for a couple of other websites of mine, plus some (carefully chosen) affiliate-linked amazon books. There's only a 1 in 3 chance it'll appear to any visitor, but it's just a bit of fun. Actually I always intended to have things appearing at random in the site's borders - that's the only reason why this site pops up in a new and size-specific window. Rather than adverts it was (and will be) doodles created by myself specifically for these borders: I like having limitations in which to be creative within. Only trouble is I have yet to create any... I'll get there eventually! In the meantime, blanks or ads it is alone. 29-11-2002 Linked on www.scene360.com, but only because it was talking about a site we sometimes link to - which is one of ours anyway, so double-plus good. 02-12-2002 Not bad for a website's first month: over 16000 visitors - roughly 762 per doodle. We're nice and high on google.com for various key search phrases - number 1 for some! 13-12-2002 We seem to have leveled out nicely to around 100-150 visitors per weekday and 75 per weekend day. That's a rather comfortable figure really - not an overwhelming amount and not too few. It seems to be enough to supply me with doodles to spare, which is great (but do keep sending them in!), although not too many of you seem to want to comment on each day's doodles. I'm not really bothered though: after all, what is there to say that needs saying? Often not much. And I suppose the comment button on the popup doesn't really leap out at you. But by all means do make comments if you want to or feel moved to - that's what it's there for. Hmmm, I imagine part of the problem is that comments don't go up on the site instantly. This coupled with the fact that their comments will be relegated to the archive along with the doodle within 24 hours probably makes it seem less worthwhile making a comment as it may not get much exposure. Oh yeah, and it's not exactly in-your-face in the popup titlebar. Ho-hum. A pity really - I like to hear peoples views almost as much as I like to see their doodles (well, slight exaggeration). 19-12-2002 From tomorrow onwards comments will not be added to doodles until sometime in early January, due to the christmas break. There will be a new doodle every weekday (we've managed to temporarily semi-automate the site that much), but the archive won't be updated until early January either. So although you won't be able to read them for a while, please don't be discouraged in sending your comments in! click here for 2003 news