What's in a Name?
Basilica were often attached to the Roman forum, central to each community, and served as a place for court to be held. Or so I read on Wikipedia. Neocities might not be a forum, but it does serve a similar social function. And it alliterated well with...
...Bigsco, which is the name of an in-lore megacorporation (see: my worldbuilding page), and serves doubly as part of my online moniker. Since this site is technically diegetic to the world, it makes sense to use it here.
Why'd You Make This?
I've always found myself drawn towards the technology and digital era of the 1990's and early 2000's. A new Wild West, a digital frontier of ideas uncapped, information let to flow free. When I heard about Neocities a few years back, I knew that eventually I had to make a site of my own. I never properly learned programming, so everything you see here was made through a lot of reverse-engineering, w3schools, and of course, trial and error.
There's another reason that I made this place, too. I'm not necessarily a prolific writer by any amount of the imagination, but over the course of the last decade or so, I've spent my days building a world with the group of people I am very happy to call my friends. It has always been a goal of ours to share this fictional reality to the real reality. I do hope you'll spend some time reading it, even if you don't like it all that much.
Fun fact, this is actually the second version of the site. You can find the sloppier, worse, original version here. I recommend you look at it, just so you can see how far I've come...
Can I Use...?
If you see something in this website's code that you like, then chances are I reverse-engineered the design from someone else, or it comes directly as a result of me searching "how to do x thing w3schools" on the internet. So go ahead and peek, and use, and rework to fit your site. Learning never happens overnight, and it sure as hell doesn't happen in a vacuum.
I would prefer if you didn't copy the art/graphics on this site (especially that relating to the lore) is something else, though. While I can't stop you, art is also a learning process (one I am still early on in), and I would rather you try to spend your time asking why I took certain decisions with my art and get yourself into the same mindset as you create your own.
Design Thesis
I believe that in the act of creation, decisions should be made with intention behind them. A lot of the time, I rely on improvisation to make these decisions, but for a larger project, I wanted a more cohesive thesis and philosophy to inform the design of the website.
Rules of thumb:
- The design thesis works to inform the creative and artistic decisions made in the creation of the website.
- It can also be broken, and often is, with intent behind that decision.
- Parts of the thesis are listed by importance to the philosophy behind its design.
- Lastly, the thesis is not implemented all at once, it is part of my journey learning to code, and as I become more confident in my abilties, the better this website will fill the design thesis.
Thesis Points:
- Design should not impede accessibility.
- When it does not impede accessibility, design should focus on audiovisual reactivity.
- The webpage should feel like, to some degree, it is diegetic to the fictional reality of the lore.
- Aesthetically, should be based around vaporwave and especially webcore tropes.
- Artistically, should inspire themes and design tropes mimicking that of the 1990's and 2000's.
- Thick-bordered pixel art should serve as the basis for graphic design.
- Informational wording on the site should be clear and concise.