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Panorama across harbour of Sydney CBD

My journey to Modern Web Design


Since my school days, I have always been interested in graphical design and actually produced a three bedroom house-plan with all specifications for a family friend while I was still a teenager. I’m pleased to say that house is now well over sixty years old, has survived many tropical cyclones and is still standing strong.

During the following years, I designed and built my first marital home and later got into yacht design with their curvy shapes. I was very privileged to receive a couple of Australian Design Awards for my yacht submissions.

It now seems a long time ago that my interest in web design began. It was well before smart-phones, responsive design and fast internet. As for many, my early web pages were built using page tables for viewing on bulky 16in green screens.

While basically a self-taught web designer, I still take a lot of inspiration from the glossy magazine leaders and Leonardo da Vinci, who reportedly said “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” and “Thank God I didn’t go to Art School”.

My desired result of every webpage is to be simple, informative, up-to-date and completely accessible to all visitors. I prefer lots of clear space, modest images, readable text sizes and line lengths plus easy navigation for all users. Also, being red/green colour-blind, I’m very conscious of the need for good colour contrast between various elements.

Currently, I’m using Visual Studio Code as my code editor and continually check all changes using the “Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool” for accessibility compliance. For quick device emulation, I also use Firefox’s Page Inspector as I find it the most accurate for that purpose. However, while I enjoy experimenting with the latest web design developments, I’ll only adopt them if I believe they add a benefit to all users.

John Lucke

Sep 2022.