Divine Designs: A History

Sit down, dear user, and read about how Divine Designs came to pass. It may not be a thrilling adventure involving dragons which need slaying, and Princesses which need saving, but the tale is good nevertheless.

2005

Divine Designs was born!

Our story begins on a free-website provider known as cjb.cc (the original site is long gone now). A fellow coding/graphic designing friend informed me of it, and with his help - since my coding knowledge was non-existent at this stage - divine-designs had its own space on the internet!

The site never grew very far though, and I only used it to upload the very few pieces of work which I’d created especially for it; suffice to say, there were only five icons present.

2006

It was in this year which the site was purchased; however, all it was ever really used for was uploading large images and never really hit the graphical community - in fact, it didn't really hit anything except perhaps a brick wall. For the most part, during this year, divine-designs.net remained dormant and untouched. My graphics were still developing - as well as my coding; so any icons, signatures, or layouts I had to offer were basic and not really worth a second glance.

Also, PHP was not supplied by my provider, so everything which had been saved from my cjb.cc account had to be pretty much remade and recoded - and as a person with only basic coding knowledge at this stage, it was very difficult.

2007

This year didn't see much else change for divine-designs.net. The site still lay dormant with barely any hits and certainly no noticeable content.

Towards the end of the year I did try and re-launch the site with better graphics, a new layout, and promised myself that I would keep it updated; however, this went to pot and I found that without the use of PHP, it was very difficult.

2008

Sadly, divine-designs continued to remain semi-dormant until the end few months of the year.

I had started a new College and was delighted to learn that one of our first projects would be in basic web design! I knew by now that I could ace the course quite easily, and instead decided that my time would be better spent updating my website as best I could given the fact that I didn't have access to Photoshop at College. It was then I learnt that my host now provided PHP support!

OH, how I rejoiced! I could finally use Cutenews again!

I wasted no time in uploading it to my site, reminding myself of how it worked and planning a new design. Somehow, even at this early stage, I knew that my site would flourish now that I had PHP access.

2009

I'm still updating the website every week, and the website is still changing - I'm never happy with the way I've laid out the navigation etc. And I'm always finding ways of improving my beloved site. Suffice to say though, that divine-designs.net ended 2008 with a strong set of legs ready to march on into 2009! So far, those legs are still marching!

Both Exile and TheDevilsCry have been added to the team! Devils has really been in the team since 2k5, but since he's made such a large contribution this year, I only thought it fit that he also be added!

On the 17^th March version 3.0 of Divine Designs was launched!

17^th June - Rachel has been added to the staff and TheDevilsCry has been promoted to co-webmaster! PNG's were also removed on this day, and replaced instead with icon bases!

24^th June - Once..., my writing portfolio site, was released.

01^st July - After many months of moaning and pestering, my very good friend, Emre, decided he would staff on the site! Also on this day, a lot of drama happened. Unfortunately, True Magic had to be removed from affiliates for lack of updates, and Hondai suggested we became link exchanges instead. Not to lose a good friend, I agreed. Then a close friend of hers who was also my affiliate - Vijayata of Anime Dreamy - decided she didn't want to affiliate with me because I made her feel like she had to update. I then learned that, despite my thinking that Vijayata and I were close, she didn't really consider me a friend at all. That hurt me, but, I'll move on, as I must. And Divine Designs continues to prosper! Over 1000 bases were reached today, quite a feat considering that they were only launched a week prior.

20^th August - WE'VE REACHED 10'000 HITS! I added the unique hit counter on March 3^rd, so in just 6 months, the site has received 10'000 unique hits (it only registers your IP once a day). This is an amazing thing to have accomplished, and I never imagined we'd be able to reach such a high number in such a short-time. Thank you to everyone who has supported Divine Designs in these early few months, and I hope you continue to do so in the years to come.

10^th November - Version 4.0 was released! This day also marked Divine Designs' first birthday after Rebirth!

2010

After an amazing 2009, Divine Designs entered the new year with fierce tenacity, and will to become one of the most popular graphic sites! Updates are continually added every week, and thus the site constantly grows.

24^th February - Once..., my writing portfolio, has been closed, and all of my poetry and prose has been added to my Deviantart here.

03^rd March - Divine Designs is now flying solo. Despite all of the brilliant hard work which her staff members put into her, now only the webmaster and co-webmaster remain. Emre, Rachel, ShiFTas and Exile all did wonderful work in helping pick Divine Designs off the ground and make her the brilliant site she is today! I've decided however that I would prefer to run the site only with the help of TheDevilsCry, and so all of their work has been removed. All of the staff have agreed with this, and I can only give them gratitude for the work they've put in.