Powazek has one of those careers that was born on the Web. He studied photojournalism in college, but by the time he graduated, photojournalists had fallen under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. So he took a job coding HTML at
Hotwired, and for nearly two years, he coded away. Eventually, he realized that something was missing. Not just in his life, but also on the Web.
"I needed a creative outlet," he says, "I also wanted to make something that let people talk to each other."
The answer was a well-designed (and ultimately, award-winning) site based around confessional stories. Although the site design has received positive reviews from design critics and magazines, including stalwarts like Communication Arts, what makes the Fray different is how content-centric it is. The story always gets the spotlight.
The Fray is also very accessible. It requires no plugins and no browser greater than 2.0. As Powazek puts it, "I want my grandmother to be able to read the Fray." To build the sites' imagery, Powazek rarely uses anything except a camera and Adobe Photoshop®. And though he normally hand-codes everything, the table code exported out of ImageReady™ meets his exacting standards.
In spite of the Fray's success, though, Powazek doesn't want to take credit for it. "I hate it when people identify the Fray with me," Powazek says. "The Fray is what people make it; it's the stories they tell and the experiences they've had. I just put it up on the Web."
Joe Shepter is an Adobe.com editor with a few confessions of his own.
