drown&disarm v.4 (november 1999-february 2000) the first true design step for me. you'll notice the page is called "drown&disarm", not vacant abandon. before this page i had a run-of-the-mill basic frames page. with this i moved more in the direction of "professional" (word used lightly) design. the white background was a new direction for me, and i still like to stick with it. throughout my designs, i alternate between white and black backgrounds (unintentionally). the poems page stayed un-integrated with the rest of the site--something i would correct in the future. go.
drown&disarm v.5 (february-april 2000) the last drown&disarm. i stayed with the same basic layout, but integrated the poetry into the site. the filesize is massive for this page--421k. despite that, i really like this layout, now. i probably removed it because someone mentioned the main image looked like a nipple. my page was much in need for a reincarnation anyway. go.
vacant abandon v.1 (april-august 2000) the first and longest lived layout of vacant abandon. the name change as well as the design approach changed. this page also has the most files dedicated to it--103. i convinced myself to lose myself in the main image. it includes some radiohead artwork elements, as i was becoming a fan at the time. i still refer back to this layout for javascript or popup commands. go.
vacant abandon v.2 (august-september 2000) one of my "month designs". i went for a different background. made very quickly, it's a very shabby page. probably my least favorite. go.
vacant abandon v.3 (september-october 2000) black and white layout. i still like the little subtitles i added at the top. i was trying to add more imagery to my site, and i should have continued in that vain with color. after this incarnations, the number of files used in the site decreases. go.
vacant abandon v.4 (october 2000-february 2001) simple copied layout. with this, i realized i needed to consolidate my site. this version probably lasted as long as it did because i was busy with school. go.
vacant abandon v.5 (february-may 2001) another of my favorite layouts. i experimented with javascript and creating backgrounds that could fit in different resolutions. also created more colorful designs. if you click the rightmost symbol in the contents menu, you'll pull up a secret area that i never got to work on (school again...). go.
vacant abandon v.6 (may-july 2001) this one is fairly obvious. i was simply changing the colors out of boredom. go.
vacant abandon v.7 (july-september 2001) another major design step, dealing with more motion. i also seriously consolidated the site down to 13 files. the first half of its existance, i simply put up text files of my poetry. over two incredibly painful days, i put all of my writings into one 39k html file (now the bulk of my site). go.
vacant abandon v.8 (september-october 2001) i changed the main image, keeping the basic structure of the site intact. this version was hardly seen until i moved my site to vauss.com. (trifocus sucks!) i used one of my favorite images for the index, changing the colors around. go.
vacant abandon v.9 (october-november 2001) i found an old image i liked and put it on the site, messing around with different ideas. just a refresher. i seem to like to remind myself i can still pull this off... go.
vacant abandon v.10 (november 2001-march 2002) a much more inviting look to my page for sure. i want to do a female-centered layout again. this picture kind of screamed out to me. in the future i'll use an original picture. all i need is a female willing to be photographed for my site. also a return to black background for the time being. this site reflects a period of complacence in my life. and i kind of removed myself from the computer for a while, so it stayed up for quite a long time. go.
vacant abandon v.11 (march-july 2002) the front image is from björk's 'all is full of love' video. and i was in love with björk at the time. i wanted a harsher sort of look to the site after having melissa on my page for so long. layouts have seemed to just stay up for a while, and they're not really new layouts so much as a change in the front image. which isn't a bad thing; it shows i have more substance than style. hopefully i hold true to that in real life. go.
vacant abandon v.12 (july-august 2002) my homage to lain. very simple layout; of course they're all simple. it's just a matter of hero worship lately. i was in a creative dry spell the latter half of the summer of 2k2, and trying to change that going into the school year--and into my adult life. it seems that web design is the most stable part of my life. the only constant. go.
vacant abandon v.13 (august-december 2002) once again back to the bright layouts, once again featuring a female as the image. i liked this layout, but tired of it for two reasons: 1. it was highly unoriginal and 2. everyone and their brother thought i was a 'hot chick'. enough said. probably why bios are good, but it's amusing, guys messaging me "i just wanted to say ur hot." i made this with the hope that this would be my last stolen-image layout. go.
vacant abandon v.14 (december 2002-february 2003) picture taken late at night in london's underground. i noticed the station was empty, and it was looking quite futuristic and photogenic so i took a shot. being bored with my last layout, it turned into a layout. contraty to popular belief, i didn't emboss it (hmph!). this is also the first time i've used photoshop, on the text parts. probably will be the last time, too. i hate photoshop. psp for life. another thing of note is that the page actually scrolls, which i usually try to avoid, but now have come to accept it, so it's not a limiting factor anymore. i removed this after being relentlessly ridiculed about my 'embossed' layout. but i swear, it's not embossed. yeah. go.
vacant abandon v.15 (february-june 2003) another sort of positive layout. took this picture on the way to school one morning. i liked how it came out, messed with it a little bit (not too much) and used it for a layout. you can see a church if you look really closely, it's hidden in the shadows. and of course the power lines are there. people always want shots of just nature or something, like "look at that mountain," but seeing nature and technology in this sort of ugly combination, it shows the truth in things. and truth is beauty, beauty is truth. and on and on, until the dawn... go.
vacant abandon v.16 (june-october 2003) words, simple words. i didn't like this layout too much, but something can be said for simplicity. i'm not a fan of this poem either but it ended up here. i just wanted words. if you look to the bottom left there's a link to an alternate layout, which is just an extra image i had worked on that was really vibrant. i ran it through a gif to ascii converter and used that html to form the page. when it loads it has a cool effect. other than that, it's just something to note that's kind of interesting. i made it about a month after the original layout because i felt like i needed something more, and this idea had been bouncing around my head for a while. go.
vacant abandon v.17 (october 2003) this is a really sloppy layout that i'm not very proud of. i like the image just fine, but i slapped it on the site and didn't even bother to correct the fact that it scrolls in 1024x768. awful. i think it stayed for a month, but i honestly don't remember. go.
vacant abandon v.18 (november 2003-may 2004) the last vacant abandon layout. i said it went until may 2004, because that was when i started ask-why.net. the image is from garbage's "i think i'm paranoid" video--there was a period of time when i was fascinated with shirley manson again. i closed up the poet side of myself by the end of 2003, and i haven't returned to vacant abandon since. go.