Guardian Archives

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The History of the Guardian Archives

It was back in February 2002 when I decided that I wanted to transform my somewhat disorganized personal website into something original and new, with its own theme and look to it.  I went to work on various designs which incorporated my two favourite colours, blue and black, and by mid March of 2002, the Guardian Archives was up and running for the very first time.

To the left is the splash page's original image before it was cropped, feathered, and the text brightened to make it easier to see.

At this time, the website was in its first stage of life and resided at GeoCities.  As pathetic as it seems to me now that I look back, I had little knowledge of HTML or web design at the time and relied mostly on an online editor to put my pages together.  To the right you can see how the original layout appeared.  Compared to today's version, it was fairly dull.  The design was pretty simple, the graphics left something to be desired, and the site was considerably smaller with fewer sections (as you may notice on the menubar at the side).  Nevertheless, I was devoted to improving my little site.  From the end of July onwards, I began making regular updates for almost every change I made to the site.

Over the next eight months, I gradually learned more HTML and began customizing the archives beyond the simple editor's abilities.  By November 2002, I had picked up enough knowledge of HTML that I decided to switch to coding the pages myself in Notepad rather than continue to use an editor.  I relocated the archives to my Shaw account's web space.  Though there was limited space, the Guardian Archives became free of ads.  During this second phase, I used ShortURL to give my site a shorter address.

While at Shaw for over a year, my indulgence in writing up the HTML manually for all the pages allowed my skills to develop and the archives slowly evolved.  Significant additions made were the monthly polls, my very own test, buttons and banners for my site, and various minor changes which improved the aesthetic appearance of the archives tremendously.

The Guardian Archives finally got its own domain in January of 2004, which I was quite glad to have happen.  In taking this third step, the archives moved on into a new period of even more changes and unique things added to it.  Having much more space too, it became easier to expand the site.

On August 1, 2004, the Guardian Archives was given a whole new layout.  Version Two incorporated the colour of grey into the overall scheme which had previously been blue and black primarily.  I felt that this third colour gave further depth to the style of the archives.  In addition to the change in overall appearance, I introduced an alternating image in the top left hand corner to keep the site lively while the user browsed its various pages.

I launched Version Three of the archives on June 30, 2009 with the new theme of light shades of blue and white.  I was somewhat saddened to abandon the traditional colours of blue and black, but I had decided to give the site a more mature look to match my own personal changes.

This historical overview of the Guardian Archives was originally created in celebration of the site's second anniversary.  It may not be the biggest or the best site around, but I have always taken pride in my diligence of maintaining it and making frequent updates.  The Guardian Archives has existed for over seven years now, and I have every intention of continuing it in the future - a personal tradition to something that has become more than just a site, but also a way of expressing myself in cyberspace.