Artdots: The benefits of creating a side project

Three key benefits of creating a side project are giving back to the community, supporting other organizations, and personal growth.

Giving back to the community

One of the greatest benefits of creating a side project is the contribution to society at large. In this example, the main cause is to support art and empower artists and art-lovers, by shining a spotlight on those behind the scenes, celebrating the collaborative nature of the creative process, emphasizing the importance of mutual inspiration, and equality between different art forms.

Many scientific studies suggest great benefits of giving back, such as increased levels of happiness and self-esteem, overall improvement in mental and physical health, and a longer lifespan.

Supporting other organizations

Creating a side project can be beneficial not only to the community but also to small businesses and non-profit organizations. The nature of making a side project gives the ability to own the decision-making, and make selective choices.

Given the small scale of the project, I have decided to avoid hosting the website and database on my personal server to ease the hosting and deployment process. After researching a backend solution, I found positive comments about Pocketbase, an open-source Go(lang) project, and I decided to use it. DigitalOcean is also known for being developer-friendly with its solutions (also supporting Hacktoberfest), and I chose their services for the project. For completing design elements, I used products from organizations that I have used in the past (Flaticon for icons) or have been a fan of for some time (MagicPattern).

Using other tools is also necessary during the promotion and organization of work. I have enjoyed working with Notion for almost a decade at this point, and it was also my go-to choice for this project.

Personal growth

Another reason for creating a side project is self-development. For me, the most challenging aspects of the process, which I was not very familiar with, were incorporating the database into the web application and its deployment. Later, I also started learning more about SEO, which I had never had the chance to do before. Besides that, making your own project allows for taking creative and strategic decisions. While promoting the site, some additional skills can be useful like writing or public speaking.

Learn more about the project: https://artdots.co