historyI p r o m i s e , i t ' s b e t t e r t h a n y o u r t e x t b o o kEver wonder how Moonflame Designs came to be? Or perhaps you're having a lazy day.. just lazy enough to read about this site. Sure, we've all had those days. Well, sit back, and I'll tell you the story of how Moonflame Designs was born.. When I, Presea, was just a little tyke (also known as about ten to eleven years old), I stumbled upon the hugely popular website called Anime Requiem. Now when I think back, I must have made my way there searching for anime or neopets layouts, but all the same, I had found the most impressive website to date. I fell in love with their style, their layouts, and soon became curious about graphic design. I was glad to find Jasc Paintshop Pro 9 on my brother's laptop, especially when I learned that it was slightly similar to the God-like Adobe Photoshop. I immediately began experimentation. Now back in the day, I ran a small guild that I called, "xThe_Hidden_Anime_LairX." I'm quite aware that the title is gag-worthy. Either way, with my new found, way below average designing skills, and a slight bearing on Neopets coding, I began coding layouts for first my userlookup and then my guild. I used AR as a guide, and eventually found myself on Freewebs creating an account for my guild. It acted as both my guild's homepage and a graphic website to boot. Sound familiar? Well, it was exactly what AR was to its webmistress' guild. Let's just say that back in the day, I was anything but my own person. Either way, moving along, this site attracted few visitors, most of the guild itself. I began to grow tired of the juvenille name and proposed a change on the guild polls. Thankfully, the others agreed and we then switched the website to Moonflame Designs. I'll admit, however shameful it may be, that the name was chosen merely because of the names of many other sites I had visted. Their names were generally composed of two words, without much relation, attached to the word designs. Thus, Moonflame Designs was born. For a while, about a year or so, the site stayed comfortably hosted by Freewebs. I continued to exercise my designing skills, growing slowly with each passing month. Eventually, Moonflame Designs had become its own site, free of the limits placed by stereotype. The site took in few staff, many coming and going, but not forgotten. It took much time, but Moonflame had grown popular as a graphics website. Eventually, the guild died. Members lost interest increasingly and visited less often. I was forced to close it down. It wasn't long before I gave up on Neopets graphics altogether which happened once Neopets recoded their entire site. Sometime in the year of 2007, if I remember correctly, Moonflame Designs was offered subdomain hosting by Jenni. I jumped at the offer, so glad to leave Freewebs which was slowly growing more and more irritating with ads and banners and toolbars. I quickly uploaded all of our folders to an FTP server, completely intimidated by the seemingly professional process. Freewebs seemed like a cage, limiting what I could do. There was so much more to learn on the sub-domain. We were happily hosted under the cat-nap.org domain until the owner shut her site down. I had back up files, yes, but they were no where near updated and we lost everything. I retreated for a while, waved a white flag, but came back into the designing world after a few months with Moonflame once again hosted on Freewebs. It was not long before my lovely host of now, Nadja, offered Moonflame Designs yet another sub-domain. I once again accepted this offer and cracked open Core FTP, ready to try my hand at subdomain hosting once again. As it stands now, Moonflame Designs has been hosted by Nadja for a good amount of time. She's been great to me, acting as both a wonderful host and friend. (If you need a host, I certainly suggest you apply!) It's almost time to celebrate its four year anniversary. So, thank you to all who have been such loyal supporters of the site, and to those who have visited just once. Your comments always make my day. Thanks for reading up on the history of Moonflame Designs! |