My journey in web design began in 1996, when I built my very first website using hand-written HTML. Looking back, it was a very different internet, but that's where my passion for creating websites started.

In 2002, I discovered PostNuke, which opened the door to dynamic, database-driven websites. It was a huge step forward from static HTML and gave me my first real experience with content management systems.

Two years later, in 2004, I moved to WordPress, and I've never looked back. WordPress quickly became the platform I wanted to build my career around, and after more than two decades, it still forms the foundation of almost everything I create.

I've been a supporter of Elegant Themes and became a Lifetime Member before Divi even existed. In early 2014, a few months before Divi 2.0 was released, I started working with Divi. Over the next ten years, I built countless websites using Divi.

By early 2024, however, I felt that Divi had fallen behind the competition. After carefully evaluating of the available page builders, I decided to move my workflow to Elementor, which at the time I believed offered a more modern and capable development experience.

But, in January 2025, I started to testing Divi 5 Public Alpha. I followed every release closely, experimenting with the new architecture and watching the platform evolve month by month.

By mid-2025, I was back working in Divi again. The new architecture, significantly improved performance, and modern development approach convinced me that Divi was once again the builder I wanted to work with.

Today, I work exclusively with Divi 5.

Nearly 30 years after writing my first HTML page, I still enjoy learning, testing new ideas, and pushing WordPress further. Whether I'm building custom WordPress websites, WooCommerce stores, creating Divi layouts, or developing new products for the Divi community, my goal is always the same: to create websites that are fast, scalable, easy to manage, and built to last.

It's great to be a part of this community. I started making websites years ago using Joomla. When I discovered Divi (3.0) it made working on websites so much easier than Joomla.

I make websites for various non-profits as I am also a Pastor of a small community of believers. I progressed through Divi 3.5, then 4.0 each time thinking this is getting easier and then for a while Divi 4 kind of began to bog down.

So when I heard about and watched the announcement and progress of Divi 5 I got excited again about building websites. Divi 5 is such a step above everything else that it is once again a joy to tackle a new learning curve.

I have been following Mak for several years and learning a lot. Mak, you make learning a joy and are straightforward about the pluses and minuses of each situation, feature or add-on. I joined your lifetime membership about late 2024 or early 2025 and am excited with where you are takin this community!

Looking forward to each new video, course, etc. Also, I have SiteKrafter Pro and went through the class but cannot find it on the courses page. I have not been able to find my License so would greatly appreciate help with that.

Great Job, Mak!

My name is Alysia (pronounced Uh-lee-sha). I've been a web designer since Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks days. I was an early adopter of Divi when it was wireframe-only with the striped purple modules.

I like Divi 5 so far, but it has had a larger learning curve for me than other page builders. This was frustrating, especially since I've used Divi for many years. I'm glad to find this group and appreciate the help when I get stuck.

My main focus right now is efficiently converting large Divi 4 sites to Divi 5, and making Divi accessible. I was disappointed that Divi 5 doesn't have basic accessibility features right out of the box. Hopefully, they will fix that without having to use a plugin or custom code in the future.

It's great to meet all of you!

Greetings everyone! Bradley or Brad to many and some. Been slangin web since the FrontPage 98 and Macromedia Dreamweaver days!

My God given talent is art - doesn't matter the medium or type, I like it all and I'm naturally good at creative things. Self-taught graphic design, videography, photography and other creative skills.

I learned how to be a better developer last year and couldn't dedicate time like I wanted. I had already fought against Divi 4 and I wanted to do something different this year. Showing up to improve my skills and help others in the process. Trying to learn as much as I can about Divi 5.

Hi Everyone,

My name is Shawn. I am a website designer and artist and have been involved in web development since the first hard-coded HTML sites. I have had to learn something new with every new technology or programming for web design and development and so this is another step in this 26 year journey. I am looking forward to the new Divi 5 design workflow and hope to see a huge increase in efficiency. I am hopeful to connect with other web designers.

Hi everyone!

My name is Naba, and I’m a white-label website designer who partners with agencies and freelancers by building websites for their clients.

I have been working in web design for the past 5 years and have been building websites with Divi since 2021. A big part of my Divi journey was learning from Mak's YouTube videos. His tutorials helped me tremendously in developing my skills and played an important role in helping me build my career as a web designer using Divi.

I'm really enjoying Divi 5 so far. The speed improvements have been impressive, and I'm excited to see how Divi continues to evolve in the future.

I joined this community to connect with other Divi professionals, learn from experienced designers and developers, share ideas, and contribute wherever I can. I'm looking forward to being part of the discussions and getting to know everyone here.

Thanks for having me!

Hi,
My name is Anders. Now a retired copywriter in B-to-B. Started building websites about 25 years ago. In 2015 I discovered Divi and have stayed with Elegantthemes ever since.
Over the years I have built websites for retreats, bookstores, chemical companies, art associations, retirement associations, consulting companies, non-profit associations, construction companies and a lot more. Always with Divi.
Now I am in the process of rebuilding a website, which I have built and maintained for almost ten years for a retirement organization, with Divi5. Then I will lie down on the couch and listen to some nice piano jazz.

I'm Dom, I'm a sideline website creator. My main occupation is IT manager for a print company. I've been doing website for a little over 10 years. I always wanted to go it alone self employed, but never made the step. I haven't created many sites in the last year or so, I now want to push to get back to doing it and seeing where it takes me.

Thanks

I'm Phil, a 60-year-old from Kent in the UK. I've been a web designer for 20 years and have been freelancing on Divi WordPress sites.

I'm currently managing 15 websites running Divi 4 and will soon transition them to Divi 5. Most of these sites are for charity (non-profit) organisations. With half a dozen running WooCommerce and a couple being membership sites.

I am an intermediate user of Divi 4 and a beginner to Divi 5.

The biggest website challenge im facing right now is migrating WooCommerce sites to FluentCart and membership sites from MemberPress to FluentCommunity.

This is Randal, and I am a "retired" illustrator, web designer, and agency owner who now only takes on freelance WordPress/DIVI projects that I can handle myself.

I built my first website using a PowerMac and "PageBuilder" at birkey.com in 1996 to display my illustration portfolio online. We were using 2400-baud modems at that time! It was a big deal when I got my first 56K modem!

I transitioned from illustrator to web-designer when my agency and designer clients started asking me to design & develop their first websites! As the technology advanced, I stayed ahead of the curve and eventually joined a software firm in 1998 to build a web design division.

In 2007, I sold that division and started a new partnership with a technology consulting firm. I repeated the same pattern, building another web agency within that firm, until I retired in 2016.

So, I have over 35 years of full-time experience in the creative illustration and visual design communication field... before retirement. More since then.

I've been using Apple Mac and Adobe software products since they both entered the marketplace. I used some Adobe products before they purchased competitor companies, such as Macromedia, Aldus, and others. Even though I have used many other big-name CMS platforms for clients such as McDonald's, State Farm, and Safelite, I've been a WordPress fan since 2006-2007.

Currently, I take on projects that come to me by word-of-mouth, and that I can complete myself in WordPress using DIVI 4 and now 5. My clients tend to be small businesses and non-profits.

I host all of my client projects (60-70) on the Cloudways platform on two Digital Ocean cloud servers. Another larger association client hosts the sites I build for them (another 50 or so DIVI4-5 sites) on Siteground.

I ran across Mak on YouTube when he was doing videos for Elegant Themes on DIVI 4. As DIVI 5 was approaching, I was intrigued by his design system approach, and the more I dived into DIVI 5, the more it made sense.

Now, I build new sites ONLY in DIVI 5 with the KrafterPro Design System. And, I am currently migrating many of my DIVI 4 client sites to DIVI 5. Mak and this web community have been a huge help!

I am looking forward to meeting more of you, beginners, amateurs, and professionals in this community and sharing experiences, knowledge, tips, fixes, workarounds, etc. I'm happy to help anyone that I can using my experience and knowledge. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions you think I might be able to help you with.

And THANK YOU, Mak, for creating this platform!