The ultimate self-referential news story on a web site is always the one about the start-up of the web site itself. But the real news about this one is that it took over 35 years to get the word out.

Laziness, extreme aversion to hype, always having enough work anyway, a sort of modesty or misguided lack of confidence in the message - these are all possible explanations but they don't tell the whole story.

As you surf the site you'll see a lot of work and if you look closely you may detect an ironic vein running through some of it. Even though Schoolworks has cultivated the image of the outsider commenting on stuff like education or architecture through our design sensibility, in the back of my mind, it must have occurred to me that if you stick your head up too far you're going to be exposed for the fraud you think you might be - which is what the irony was intended to mask.

I'm happy to say - and this is the news part - that Schoolworks, in all its unprofessional splendor, is coming out. In the past few years I've been able to connect to colleagues of all sorts through organizations like the Community Built Association who do wonderful work in committed and forceful ways and have been reminded that you can provide valuable creative services to communities and professional clients and still maintain a sense of humor about yourself and your work.

That's not to say that this isn't also just a summation of projects built over the years, or a request for more work in the future. Most web sites are. But it won't be rendered in a detached, commercial tone as in most cases. This work is personal and that's how it will be presented.