We Are Seven is a small, indpendent web design business serving authors, artists, artisans, and other creators. When you hire us, you'll work with an experienced web designer and web developer to create an original design that fits your brand and meets your needs. Basically, we can write the code that makes your website run and create a seamless design (including custom graphics). You can learn more about our experience below, Or you can skip ahead to the FAQ.
Our designer-developer says: As someone who started coding as a kid in the 90s, I’ve had ample experience with different coding languages, trends, and platforms. When I decided to offer artists, authors, and artisans an alternative to AI-generated sites, I made sure to fill in my self-taught knowledge gaps by completing the following courses on W3 Schools:
I also brushed up my Wordpress skills with the company’s own User and Developer courses.
As a designer and digital artist, I am self taught. You can read more about that in the next section.
Our designer-developer says:I was fortunate to learn HTML in the early days of the internet, when Angelfire and Geocities offered anyone with coding abilities the freedom to make their very own website. CSS was still pretty new, and taught myself how to edit and later write my own CSS files. It was a passion for me, which is why I am still doing it today even though faster, easier, and cheaper options are available. It’s the same reason a sewist makes their own clothes even though faster, easier, and cheaper options are available. It’s probably the same reason you do what you do even though industrialized and/or AI options exist.
At this time, my dad was teaching himself how to build computers, so I had a PC in my bedroom when most people were still using the family computer in the central computer room. Dad also bought Adobe Photoshop for me (back when it was on a disk and was intended to be a one-time purchase). I devoured tutorials from Adobe and PaintShop Pro (this was long before YouTube), learning the ins and outs of industry-leading photo editing software.
All of this was in service of my collection of fansites. I was still a teen, and I had no thoughts about turning my hobby into a career. However, one of my fansites was listed on Google Directories a couple decades ago! No, I will not be sharing it, and I will admit up front that its listing there was far less about my technical skill as a web coder and web designer than it was about the fact that I had the only English language site dedicated to the specific character. Still, it was an accomplishment I cherish to this day.
As the web landscape changed, I learned new skills to support my hobby. Then, in 2013, I turned to Wordpress to create my first for-profit enterprise: The American Spinster. (The site is archive-only now).
It means that unlike large companies relying on overworked designers or gig workers leveraging AI code-writing bots, we can give you the customization you want. Do you need a specific form for your clients? That’s no problem. We can code one for you. Do you want to use specific colors and other brand elements? We can incorporate whatever you like. Because we do this for the joy of creating art that’s meaningful to me, we're committed to seeing your vision through.
Perhaps most importantly, you won’t need to wrestle with the ethics of using an AI-generated website for your human-crafted art or services.
At We Are Seven, we make highly functional art, both on the page and in the back-end. Every site we build has it’s very own style sheet. That means you’re not getting a tweaked template—you’re getting something hand-designed for you. It also means that nothing is superfluous or wasted in my code, giving you a streamlined source and a highly efficient site.
All our designs come from our designer-developer's head (or yours, if you want me to use your work!). We don’t use templates or buy web page designs from other sources.
You can rest easy knowing that we only use properly licensed fonts, source images, textures, etc., and credit all contributors appropriately.
We never use generative AI in any of our work. We also carefully source any fonts, features, images, etc. so you’ll know everything on your site was made by humans.
We believe deeply in the beauty, power, and necessity of human innovation. When we outsource our creativity, we lose what makes life worthwhile.
Our designer-developer says:I love technology. I love computers (I did become a web developer, after all). But I believe technology should help humans reach a state of prosperity and fulfillment. The way generative AI is being used now, particularly in artistic spaces, is not helping us reach that goal. Likewise, planned obsolescence and technology that’s designed to make repairs difficult are moving technology away from being useful tools and toward a necessary evil.
I want AI to manage my groceries, not ‘create’ my artwork.
At the end of the day, I want robots and humans to live harmoniously in a beautiful cyber-cottage-core utopia, like A Psalm for the Wild-Built. Or at least like the early 90s.
If you’re an independent artist, artisan, author, or any type of creative person, reach out now to discuss your web presence.