artists, musicians, writers, and all types of creative people could benefit from having their own space online. how do we reach the people that don’t already have the technical knowledge to create their own websites? we can offer IRL workshops at community spaces to help beginners get started!
i’m starting to put together a plan (a syllabus?) for leading these workshops, and i hope to turn it into a helpful resource for anyone who’s interested in doing the same! it’s in its early stages now, but i hope to keep updating this post with more information as the idea develops.
feedback is welcome! i would love to hear about workshop ideas, teaching resources, your own personal experiences teaching someone HTML/CSS, or critique of any of the plans i have laid out so far. let’s get everyone to make their own websites!
Workshops should result in files that are ready to go online.
Embrace creativity.
“If you could put anything on a website, what would you want it to be?”
Teaching Resources
Workshop Ideas
Replace your Linktree (2 - 3 hours)
Brief intro on WHY
Make a folder, get a code editor, etc
Basic document structure and HTML elements
Links
Images
Compression
CSS: color, margins/padding, and FONTS :~)
Upload to a free webhost
Create an Online Gallery
Not a fully formed idea yet. offer some image gallery template options and then have it be like open office hours helping people get set up?
Make a Commissions Sheet
Like a cross between the links page and the gallery workshops: links to payment methods + small gallery of example work. Maybe go over flexbox?
Turn your CV/Resume into a Website
Relatable to more people than just those who self-identify as creative. Useful and a good jumping off point to show people that making a website can be a creative exercise.
I love this idea and would be interested in helping if I can!
One idea I have is maybe a commission sheet workshop for artists who do commissions! I noticed a lot of artists use carrd or even just make an image with their commission info, where as a website would allow them more customization and much easier editing :3
i’m also very interested in this idea. i’m (passively) putting together a presentation using some old notes i’ve typed up, and i think a 60-90m workshop at the local library would be a good start.
unfortunately the only idea i have is one that is relatable, and most people could benefit from, but not much fun: turning your CV/resume into a personal-professional website. it falls along the same lines of replacing linktree or showcasing a portfolio, but maybe could be a good jumping-off point? i think it’s a good one to reach individuals who might say, “Oh I’m not creative” and think there is no need in having that web presence.
This is such a cool idea! One thing I’d love to see is making sure any templates used in workshops (like links pages and galleries) are as accessible as possible, and providing basic guidelines to help them stay accessible as folks edit them.
Oooo what a wonderful idea!! I’m fairly new to the coding world but LOVE teaching and adapting materials.
Some rapid-fire lecture/workshop topics:
a Coding For Creatives series detailing how to make a website for free, how to display your art AND express yourself
a Coding for College class series that helps college students or prospective college students learn coding skills, applications of those skills, and how to make a personal site or professional site
a Coding for Business class series that helps small businesses learn how to code or to connect with coders in the community, how to do transactions, how to make a professional site
The IndieWeb hosts similar sorts of events / workshops. I believe they could serve as a good source of reference, inspiration and innovation. They call them IndieWebCamps:
Something I wish still existed was Piczo. Anyone remember Piczo? That was such an easy web builder, anyone could easily use it. Everything was pretty much drag and drop. I know similar ones exist but I don’t think they really compare well to the user-friendliness of what Piczo was. It’d be really cool to see someone take on building something modelled to be similar to the old Piczo. It’d be perfect for total beginners, and a good entry point to spark interest in delving deeper into webweaving too. :)
I’m keeping the idea lodged in the back of my head until I finish my web dev courses. I might attempt it. I imagine creating something like Piczo would take a lot of time and resources though, but it’s an idea if it sparks inspo for anyone else to give it a go in the meantime. :) It’d be a great tool for these kinds of workshops!
Related to this subject, and potentially of interest… https://landchad.net/ offers a pretty good course for buying space on a VPS, setting up a webserver, setting up certbot and all that, and hosting some HTML content, as well as other self-hosted services.
Personally, I think this is well worth a look and might be useful for forming the basis of this. The fundamental question is how much technical knowledge, and how much “boilerplate”(it’s not really boilerplate, it’s just configuration) you want people to work through? Simple plain hosts like neocities offer a good foot in the door for the HTML/CSS sites, but the parts covered in landchad talk about what I consider the more fundamentally important part of setting up a site… is actually owning it.
I’m curious, how would you intend to go about making a commissions sheet? I know Paypal and Stripe have basic integrations you can do, but in my experience(experience: hosting a POD bookstore) they are both janky options. I know sl does this for his zines
i’m so excited for you, loren! i hope you’ll keep us posted on your progress and let us know how it ultimately goes. i’m really interested in doing more of these in person and i would love to hear about how you went about doing this.
