Being a Maker in the Digital World

To some, the very idea might seem like an unresolvable paradox, but the more I think about it, the more I think there is room to think of oneself as a "maker" even when working in a non-physical medium.  Namely, I think there is such a thing as a digital maker.

In a previous post, I explored the nature and motivation behind the maker movement - in my analysis, the soul of making lives in the idea of craft, creativity, and the impetus to engage directly with challenges, rather than buying a solution off the rack.  The more I think about it, the more I think that working in a digital space can still provide those experiences.

The realization first struck me when I dived into the work of re-designing the look the The Reflecting

Pool.  I was frustrated with the templates and level of customization available to me with blogging sites out of the box; after wrestling with the front-end interface, I bit the bullet and started to teach myself HTML (for the second time) and CSS (for the first time - the last time I learned HTML, style sheets weren't yet a thing).  And even though all of the products I produced were physically intangible, I still felt the same sense of accomplishment.  I could manipulate the code and see the result.  I was forced to tinker and tweak and work around bugs and syntax problems, and in the end I built something that I value and which I'll continue to try to craft with time.

In many ways, this post is an invitation from those of you out there that think of yourselves as makers to articulate what that identity means to you.  Is it possible to be a maker in a medium that doesn't allow for tactile manipulation?  I would argue that it is.  App designers are the makers of the digital age, and if we feel the need to exclude them from the movement, then the only way to be a maker is to leave behind all vestiges of technology, and the makers will have to go out into the woods and start engineering their own tools from sticks and stones.

Just sayin'.