Dry Erase Website Creation

Written By: Timothy Fish Published: 5/9/2007

I’ll have to file this one under the category of “I wish I had thought of that.” I happened to come across a forum that has a link to a book promotion website. The link is http://www.noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/ . I know nothing about the book and the website doesn’t tell me why I would want to buy the book, but the author created a whole website using kitchen appliances and a dry erase marker. While I would never recommend this as the sole approach to creating a website, the approach does give the author and her book some visibility that she would not otherwise have. It is also similar to some of what I recommend in my own book, Church Website Design, but it has problems because search engines will never find the site unless text is added.

The approach that Miranda July used for her website has the beginnings of the approach that I present. What I suggest is drawing out the design of the website and then using the drawing as the framework for the final design. In the method I present, it would be possible to take a child’s crayon drawing and use that as the basis for the website. Nothing could be more simple. Miranda July may have thought that it would be easier to do the whole website with a dry erase marker and a camera than what it is to create a functioning website, or it could be that she just wanted to be funny. As she mentions on her website, doing what she did is a lot of work. As a church webmaster, I don’t want to have to do a lot of work. Since I don’t get paid for the work I do and there are more enjoyable things I could be doing, I want to do what needs to be done without a lot of time being invested. I also want to be able to make changes without too much trouble. Miranda July’s approach fails on both counts, but it does provide an interesting example.