Dave Willard
I started Alt Five to leverage my web design skills and 8+ years of marketing experience to help independent entrepreneurs and small businesses tell their story online and connect with their customers. What makes me unique as a web designer? Well, I didn’t come into it via the typical path. Web design basically found me…
The first website I ever created was a Metallica fan site back around 1996. The internet was pretty new back then. I was but a kid, who loved playing guitar, listening to Metallica and was fascinated by this new digital world that I could access via my 56 kbps dial up modem.
My family at that time had an internet service called AOL, which among other things, had a web hosting feature called AOLPress. Using the copious amount of free time I had as a teenager (ahh those were the days) I taught myself HTML code and built a fan page for my favorite band.
The site featured song lyrics, pictures, midi files (bonus points if you remember what those were!) and links to other fan pages. I’m sure by today’s standard, it looked pretty horrendous, but it’s hard to recall. Sadly, AOLPress and the websites it hosted are long gone, so unfortunately I can’t link to it and let you marvel at the site’s guestbook, visitor counter and my use of spining email gifs.
Fast forward through the next couple decades of my life, I spent most of my time pursuing my musical interests. Although, my self-acquired web design skills were busted out when I needed them, to build websites for my bands, and for my guitar teaching business.
Then I switched career paths and landed a corporate gig in marketing. My new employer desperately needed a new website, but hadn’t a clue about how to go about it. I knew I could make a website that was whole lot better, so I convinced them to let me take a crack at it.
And it worked out! About 4 months later the company had a brand spanking new website and I was the company’s new, defacto webmaster. Since then I’ve done a couple major redesigns, improving both the site and my skill sets markedly. As it turns out, I have a pretty good knack for making websites and I enjoy it tremendously!
Now with Alt Five, I’m taking the leap and offering my web design skills to the world. I want to help build a better-looking, better-functioning internet, one website at a time.
Hey, thanks for reading this. If you’re still here, I’m guessing you’re pretty interested in finding someone to make you a website. Am I the right guy for the job? Shoot me a message. Let’s talk.