Mark Wunsch

In web design and development, the concept of The Zone is often discussed. Quoting Dan Benjamin:

“Most people who create things will enter a state of mind where the activity of producing something, the act of creating, become effortless (or at least easier). Writers often describe the sensation of their hands flying across the keyboard, words coming out without pause or difficulty, the message clarifying before them on the page (or screen). Artists often describe a similar sensation, as if their brush was being guided by their subconscious mind. And although many people think of software development as a kind of science, there is a great deal of creativity involved in writing code, and it works the very same way.”

In creating this website, my intention was to create a writing space that encouraged entrance into The Zone. I wanted to create an area that was dedicated to creating a simple space where I could write about and save the things that interest me. The result is a tumblelogish space where I can consolidate long-form articles, collected links, and quotes into one stream. This is by no means the permanent form of MarkWunsch.com. The web, unlike other creative outlets, is flexible enough to be iterative—an organic medium.

This site was built with Expression Engine Core. After dabbling in Drupal, WordPress, and MovableType, I settled on Expression Engine. It’s much more powerful than I need it to be, but it is a fantastic tool and I hope to be able to use it much more. It gives me complete control over my code. One thing I am really pleased about in MarkWunsch.com is the use of several Microformats. The content of the site uses hAtom. The links I post in the feed are written as xFolk, and my name up there is an hCard. If you use Firefox, you can use the Operator extension to best utilize these features.

Enjoy!