Welcome to BahaiWebsites. When I returned to the Faith a few years ago after a long absence, I began looking for a path to service. It wasn’t easy. I had been self-employed for most of my professional life, I also had unknowingly been struggling with what I had assumed were childhood allergies.
Hello Bahá’í World!
Most of my skills had been self-taught and by now, were outdated. Briefly, I had studied Graphic Design and Journalism in college. I decided those were too slow. As a child, I had helped my father in his photo darkroom and had been a professional photographer for many years, first in Corvallis, OR and then in Santa Fe, NM.
But film went away. Kodak had been the most trusted brand on the planet. They even invented the digital chip. But they twiddled their thumbs making profits from their chemical-based photography. Film emulsions were beautiful but many people liked the instant images, even tho they looked terrible. It took only 7 years from less than 1% digital to less than 1% film. Seven years!
In 2003, I began making websites. In the beginning I made HTML pages by hand. I also have experience with DreamWeaver (terrible), Bootstrap, Website Builder, and WordPress. In fact, I was a WordCamp Ranger in San Francisco for 2013 and 2014. Along the way, I bough into a reseller web store. In the beginning, I made money in making the websites.
It wasn’t until 2015, when I made money from the website. In fact, I can spend a huge amount of time perfecting the details. I did this with Affiliate Marketing. I spent a lot of time on that website and it performed really well. At it’s best, it is solving your problems, making a blog or video about it, and receiving a commission for the recommendation. It was a good skill, tho I have chosen not to continue on that path. That’s because there are so many unethical systems pushed by people without regard to helping people.
The path I have chosen, is to make themes and templates for others. This brings together the best of my skills. In making website templates, I’m using the Graphic Design, Photography, and English composition skills from Journalism. The web developer skills I learned from HTML and Bootstrap work to make my WordPress websites better. And, I am able to host these website from the reseller web store.
There are no mistakes, but it took it took a few “scenic routes” before I found the current path. I originally thought of some other directions, tho I won’t elaborate on them here. I made an HTML self-contained template, which serves as a “starter” template. It’s a no-code, no-tech, fill-in-the-form website that is made to be edited by two thumbs on a smartphone. Originally, this was named the 9YearPlan. This is now the ‘Akká.
The other templates in the Gallery are Child Themes of WordPress, termed Bahjí. These will require the user install the Parent theme, and then install and activate the Child Theme. These themes are part of the larger ecosystem that powers almost half of the internet. There are many resources for special needs and customizations.
