We all have to start somewhere and AutoLooks print is where we started from. But back when we started our layout looked much different and was only focused on one thing, design ratings. So I guess you can say that we haven't changed much, well except for the multitude of different pages and information that is now available on AutoLooks.net. So if your looking to see where AutoLooks came from, then look no further than this page.
LOOKING TO LEARN A BIT MORE ABOUT WHO IS BEHIND AUTOLOOKS. THEN CHECK OUT THE PAGE BELOW FOR A CATALOGUE OF WORK FROM EVERETT J. THIS PAGE COVERS HIS WORK AS A FREELANCE DESIGNER, CUSTOMIZER, COMPANY OWNER, CLOTHING DESIGNER AND AUTHOR.
AutoLooks History:
AutoLooks has come a long way since it was created back on July 23, 2004 as it has evolved many times but never gave up on its core interest. Our first article was started back on July 23, 2004 with the introduction of both our logo and what we stood for. Ever since that first article was published AutoLooks has been pushing the boundaries of automotive design. Our first issue centered around the bland styling of the 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the “not your grandpa’s” Acura RL. We did cover a few other cars, but it was these two vehicles which inspired us into writing about the flaws of automotive designs. We soon followed up our first issue with three (3) more and over the next couple of months AutoLooks was building on its ideas. Our initial plan was to release one issue per month, but that plan soon faded as time on other projects got in the way. Within the first year of operation only four (4) issues were released while there was four (4) more on the table for creation.
After a brief hiatus due to other projects, AutoLooks was back to the drawing board. But this time we decided to turn our attention away from full articles and move into a short email blog. This only lasted a short two (2) month stint, but did create nine (9) new issues for the books.
We then decided that both previous avenues were not what we wanted to go after. As there were already bloggers and email blogs out there covering those avenues. AutoLooks then took the next year to look over what it could do for the world of automobiles and with that thought we started work on our highly sought after rating system. So over the next eight (8) months we worked hard to create the best rating system out there. During this timeframe we put our pre-existing automotive websites list to the test in helping us build the ultimate list of new cars. We wanted to go after every known new car out there and put them up against each other on our rating system. And by the time Christmas rolled around in 2007, we were ready.
January 2008 can be named our actual creation date as it was then when we release our very first “Year End Review”. We had over 150 cars that we rated from many different segments and after two (2) weeks of long hours and hard work, our Year End Review was set onto the world stage. But all was not good as our website was cheap looking and had issues loading the entire article. But this didn’t stop us from creating two (2) more year end reviews. Sure AutoLooks was only a once a year type of website, but we were on our way to something even more special.
It was late fall in 2010 when my wife showed me a new website host engine that could help out AutoLooks. As Angelfire was a dying host site with very few options we were determined to find another. But as you know most host sites don’t let you play around before you buy. But with the ability to create a plain website before you bought a domain with Weebly, we were in heaven. Yes it had great features, but there was one thing that really sealed the deal with AutoLooks. And that was the ability to create our own “Rate It” section. This would become the defining page for the new AutoLooks and one that would help us break through the once a year cycle.
After a few months of playing around with Weebly, we had finally settled on our first domain. But as we were not able to get the .com we wanted and .ca’s were even more difficult, we settled for the .net. So now we were finally able to get our new website off the ground. But with only a year end review, what else could we have on this website.
That answer came from Weebly as they gave us the chance to allow you the consumer, rate new vehicles based on our consumer rating system. This was a great start, but there had to be more that we could add to our new page. Our previous page had a corporate website page and my famous favouite car list. But really who wants to see a personal car list by someone they don’t know. So we decided to build on our previous corporate website list and add a few more companies. From there we added on our aftermarket and coachbuild websites pages as well.
Even with all of that we still wanted more from our new website and that again came from a previous conversation with a few friends. I had finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase a webcam and start taking my rating system to a new page called YouTube. Yes we were there when YouTube was first growing and we did last a few months before throwing in the digital towel. Lack of viewers and limited time for other projects was starting to turn against the main page. And for that we decided to hang up the webcam and go back to what really matters. Had we had known that YouTube was the fastest growing medium at the time, we would have stuck out a bit longer.
As time passed it seemed that our core for ratings wasn’t getting noticed enough, so yet again we decided to branch out. We did take notice that our Rate It page was growing, so we expanded on it with Concept, Lineup and Corporate ratings. But as time went on even these pages would fall out of favour as they were only a great concept, and not really followed through to their full extent. But during this time we did notice that we needed more vehicles for the rating system. This soon led us to create the lineups page. A page dedicated to the complete listing of all corporations lineups. It would include logos, variation of models and every model included within each companies global lineup. This was a great idea, but the maintenance on it required constant updates and after two years of operation it was dropped as it took away too much of our valuable time. We really wished we could have kept it going as it did allow anyone from around the world to see each companies complete lineup. This meant that if you were in America you could see products that Ford had from Brazil, Africa, Russia, China and so on. Great idea, but too time consuming for one person.
During our time building the lineups page we did start to find more and more information about the history of each company. This soon led to the creation of our History page, but like the lineups page it does take quite a bit of time to keep updated. Since its inception the history page has helped many of our viewers with projects and from that we have thanked them by adding a few more pages to our list. Thanks to viewers for the introduction of the Extras and Greet Automotive pages. This was because of your input from using our history page that we were able to build these pages for you.
Just before our 10th anniversary we had one of those epiphany moments. I had trouble finding a good children’s book about vehicles and that’s when the idea came to mind. Let’s do our own. So we did and from there we have made four (4) children’s books. To this day we have many more ideas for our next books and will be bringing more out in the near future.
As our 10th anniversary passed us by without anything truly great happening, it was time again to think how we could make the site even better. That answer came as we had been updating our page with concept ratings, it just seemed obvious that we needed to add a page that showcased the auto shows of the world in the best way possible. This page was easy to create as we were already going to a few of the sites for updates and had built a spreadsheet of information. Utilizing this information along with a few pictures of the show helped us build one of the better auto show pages. As you can access the websites of the shows through company logos this helps bring you from our page to there’s. This along with the ability to see and read about a few of the previous concepts helps to bridge the gap between possibly going and wanting to go.
As it seemed to be a yearly thing for awhile, we were again looking at adding yet another page to the site. And late in 2016 we finally came to our senses and starting really working on our next project. I had been playing around with the idea of an automotive calendar for years, even before AutoLooks was created. So over those years I had built a massive spreadsheet with important dates on it. But up until now I had always felt like it wasn’t complete enough for the site. So by 2016 I had finally realized that it was time to put this idea out there even if it didn’t feel finished. So by early 2017 it was finished and sent out into the world. With this we were better able to utilize our feeds to help spread the word about important dates to the world.
After the release of the Calendar it was time to clean the page up. As we had created so many different pages, it seemed like the page was becoming cluttered and we decided it was time to integrate, kill off or update a few of our pages. We did kill off a few pages completely, with a few more integrated with others, but it was our corporate websites page that got the major overhaul that year. A better flow and appearance was created to help our viewers out and finally let you see each company as it was meant to be. This appearance was also utilized up the updated auto shows page and eventually the history page.
As our journey continues, AutoLooks will keep on pushing itself to the limits and keep evolving with the industry. And maybe someday we will finally get around to releasing our a few more of our hidden pages along with one project that could change the industry and the face of AutoLooks. But until that day comes, we will just keep on doing what we do best, “Protecting consumers from bad designs”.
June 14, 2018
Everett J. – Owner
AutoLooks.net, #AutoLooks, @Autolooks
After a brief hiatus due to other projects, AutoLooks was back to the drawing board. But this time we decided to turn our attention away from full articles and move into a short email blog. This only lasted a short two (2) month stint, but did create nine (9) new issues for the books.
We then decided that both previous avenues were not what we wanted to go after. As there were already bloggers and email blogs out there covering those avenues. AutoLooks then took the next year to look over what it could do for the world of automobiles and with that thought we started work on our highly sought after rating system. So over the next eight (8) months we worked hard to create the best rating system out there. During this timeframe we put our pre-existing automotive websites list to the test in helping us build the ultimate list of new cars. We wanted to go after every known new car out there and put them up against each other on our rating system. And by the time Christmas rolled around in 2007, we were ready.
January 2008 can be named our actual creation date as it was then when we release our very first “Year End Review”. We had over 150 cars that we rated from many different segments and after two (2) weeks of long hours and hard work, our Year End Review was set onto the world stage. But all was not good as our website was cheap looking and had issues loading the entire article. But this didn’t stop us from creating two (2) more year end reviews. Sure AutoLooks was only a once a year type of website, but we were on our way to something even more special.
It was late fall in 2010 when my wife showed me a new website host engine that could help out AutoLooks. As Angelfire was a dying host site with very few options we were determined to find another. But as you know most host sites don’t let you play around before you buy. But with the ability to create a plain website before you bought a domain with Weebly, we were in heaven. Yes it had great features, but there was one thing that really sealed the deal with AutoLooks. And that was the ability to create our own “Rate It” section. This would become the defining page for the new AutoLooks and one that would help us break through the once a year cycle.
After a few months of playing around with Weebly, we had finally settled on our first domain. But as we were not able to get the .com we wanted and .ca’s were even more difficult, we settled for the .net. So now we were finally able to get our new website off the ground. But with only a year end review, what else could we have on this website.
That answer came from Weebly as they gave us the chance to allow you the consumer, rate new vehicles based on our consumer rating system. This was a great start, but there had to be more that we could add to our new page. Our previous page had a corporate website page and my famous favouite car list. But really who wants to see a personal car list by someone they don’t know. So we decided to build on our previous corporate website list and add a few more companies. From there we added on our aftermarket and coachbuild websites pages as well.
Even with all of that we still wanted more from our new website and that again came from a previous conversation with a few friends. I had finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase a webcam and start taking my rating system to a new page called YouTube. Yes we were there when YouTube was first growing and we did last a few months before throwing in the digital towel. Lack of viewers and limited time for other projects was starting to turn against the main page. And for that we decided to hang up the webcam and go back to what really matters. Had we had known that YouTube was the fastest growing medium at the time, we would have stuck out a bit longer.
As time passed it seemed that our core for ratings wasn’t getting noticed enough, so yet again we decided to branch out. We did take notice that our Rate It page was growing, so we expanded on it with Concept, Lineup and Corporate ratings. But as time went on even these pages would fall out of favour as they were only a great concept, and not really followed through to their full extent. But during this time we did notice that we needed more vehicles for the rating system. This soon led us to create the lineups page. A page dedicated to the complete listing of all corporations lineups. It would include logos, variation of models and every model included within each companies global lineup. This was a great idea, but the maintenance on it required constant updates and after two years of operation it was dropped as it took away too much of our valuable time. We really wished we could have kept it going as it did allow anyone from around the world to see each companies complete lineup. This meant that if you were in America you could see products that Ford had from Brazil, Africa, Russia, China and so on. Great idea, but too time consuming for one person.
During our time building the lineups page we did start to find more and more information about the history of each company. This soon led to the creation of our History page, but like the lineups page it does take quite a bit of time to keep updated. Since its inception the history page has helped many of our viewers with projects and from that we have thanked them by adding a few more pages to our list. Thanks to viewers for the introduction of the Extras and Greet Automotive pages. This was because of your input from using our history page that we were able to build these pages for you.
Just before our 10th anniversary we had one of those epiphany moments. I had trouble finding a good children’s book about vehicles and that’s when the idea came to mind. Let’s do our own. So we did and from there we have made four (4) children’s books. To this day we have many more ideas for our next books and will be bringing more out in the near future.
As our 10th anniversary passed us by without anything truly great happening, it was time again to think how we could make the site even better. That answer came as we had been updating our page with concept ratings, it just seemed obvious that we needed to add a page that showcased the auto shows of the world in the best way possible. This page was easy to create as we were already going to a few of the sites for updates and had built a spreadsheet of information. Utilizing this information along with a few pictures of the show helped us build one of the better auto show pages. As you can access the websites of the shows through company logos this helps bring you from our page to there’s. This along with the ability to see and read about a few of the previous concepts helps to bridge the gap between possibly going and wanting to go.
As it seemed to be a yearly thing for awhile, we were again looking at adding yet another page to the site. And late in 2016 we finally came to our senses and starting really working on our next project. I had been playing around with the idea of an automotive calendar for years, even before AutoLooks was created. So over those years I had built a massive spreadsheet with important dates on it. But up until now I had always felt like it wasn’t complete enough for the site. So by 2016 I had finally realized that it was time to put this idea out there even if it didn’t feel finished. So by early 2017 it was finished and sent out into the world. With this we were better able to utilize our feeds to help spread the word about important dates to the world.
After the release of the Calendar it was time to clean the page up. As we had created so many different pages, it seemed like the page was becoming cluttered and we decided it was time to integrate, kill off or update a few of our pages. We did kill off a few pages completely, with a few more integrated with others, but it was our corporate websites page that got the major overhaul that year. A better flow and appearance was created to help our viewers out and finally let you see each company as it was meant to be. This appearance was also utilized up the updated auto shows page and eventually the history page.
As our journey continues, AutoLooks will keep on pushing itself to the limits and keep evolving with the industry. And maybe someday we will finally get around to releasing our a few more of our hidden pages along with one project that could change the industry and the face of AutoLooks. But until that day comes, we will just keep on doing what we do best, “Protecting consumers from bad designs”.
June 14, 2018
Everett J. – Owner
AutoLooks.net, #AutoLooks, @Autolooks
