What’s Visualgui Anyway?

Visualgui turned 10 last week. When I registered this domain at GoDaddy on April 8, 2003, I didn’t expect the site to last this long. At that time, I faced with bad hosting providers and domain services. Prior to Visualgui, I lost D3studio.com, which was my first site. D3, which stood for Donny Digital Design, started when I was still in college as my web design portfolio and studio. After the site went down for a week, I could no longer contacted my host. The company, which also registered my domain, went out of business. As a result, I lost everything. Lesson I learned from that experience: never put all of my eggs into one basket.

In April 2003, I decided to start from scratch again. I separated my domain from my host and did an in depth research of hosting providers. I am so glad I chose Lunarpages and been happy with them ever since. Although GoDaddy has a bad rep for its services and commercials, I don’t have any problem in regard to domain registration.

While searching for my new name, I came across a web site that listed the latest domains that became available. I can’t even recall which site it was. One of the names stood out to me was ChunkyGui.com and I immediately thought of VisualGui. The name was still available and I took it. Though I refer to it as the “Visual Guy,” the pun was Visual Graphical User Interface.

After ten years of associating with this brand, I wanted to make it more relevant to my current design direction and sensibility. Rather than referring to my design as “Visual Graphical User Interface,” the new brand refers to design “Visual” that “Gets Users Involved.” Whether reading a blog, buying a product or using a service, users are involved in the process; therefore, I want my design to focus on the involvement of the users first and foremost. My goal is to provide an easy, pleasant experience for users to accomplish their tasks no matter which device they are using on their hands. User-centered design has played a major role of my work for many years; therefore, the change is a natural fit.

Last week, I refreshed this site making it a seamless experience across multiple devices. The redesign was also to quietly celebrate its 10th anniversary. I was not planning on making the announcement, but the rebrand needed the background history to see how the name has evolved.