Ellen Li About

Website archive

A non-exhaustive history of my website over the years

2000-2006

I made my first website on Geocities in 2000, at age 7. After WYSIWYG on Geocities, I learned HTML and CSS thanks to Neopets and LiveJournal.

While beginning to code, I also began to design. I switched from MS Paint to Adobe Photoshop, and in that process, I discovered the world of fonts, brushes, textures, and blending modes.

In 2003, I became a webmaster, running several hobby sites (to discover Asian music, to learn PHP, etc) and fan sites. I maintained a personal blog too. I’ve consolidated my blogging history here.

While running these websites, I became a webhost, offering free hosting to other girls roughly my age (10±3) who wanted their own website. After school, I’d hop onto MSN to teach them how to use FTP, Greymatter, and WordPress.

For a bunch of years I’d redesign my personal blog every few months. It was fun! A handful of those designs are archived below. While I don’t have many screenshots to share, the years of Web 1.0 were some of my most creative years.

Fall 2006

Featuring the GazettE, a Japanese visual kei rock band.

Winter 2006

Featuring Naruto manga scans of the (epic) battle between the Uchiha brothers.

2007

Featuring Vic Chou (周渝民), a Taiwanese actor and singer.

Spring 2008

Featuring Ai Otsuka (大塚 愛), a Japanese singer-songwriter.

Fall 2008

Featuring Park Yoo-chun (박유천), a Korean singer-songwriter and actor.

2011–2014

After high school, I simplified my aesthetics to focus on content.

2017

Took down the blog and put up a one-page website to focus on work.

2018–2021

Tweaked from my previous design to focus on talks. Live archive here.

2021–2025

Designed to focus less on work, and more on what I’m up to. Live archive here.

Summer 2025

The site you’re looking at. WordPress! More on the inner workings here.

Thanks for checking out my personal website archive!


Updated August 5, 2025