Make Your WordPress Blog Go From Blah to Awesome
Dejan Cancarevic over at Stylizedweb.com has a great post up for all you WordPress hackers loaded with useful tricks that you can use to turn your blog from blah to awesome. Nice stuff Dejan!
Dejan Cancarevic over at Stylizedweb.com has a great post up for all you WordPress hackers loaded with useful tricks that you can use to turn your blog from blah to awesome. Nice stuff Dejan!
Oh yes, the current theme I’m using is Wolfgang Bartleme’s Dark theme that he used to use. I just wanted to see what it looked like but I’ll leave it up for a while. Wolfgang is on my list as “one freakin’ awesome” designer. You can check out more of his stuff and his current beautiful template at www.bartelme.at.
I spent this past weekend learning Flash CS 3. Long ago, back in the early days of the interwebs, I used Flash but it was nothing compared to what it is today. Adobe has done an awesome job making the new Flash a uniform part of the Adobe experience. The new tools, layout, and additional features make it a lot better than it ever was. I’ve gone from a die hard “flash sucks” to actually enjoying myself. Good job Adobe.
Well I just checked the billing status of Dailything.com and it looks like I’ll be with this hosting service a while longer. I paid for 2 years last time so I’m good through April 2009.
I’m currently using MediaTemple to host a whole slew of other projects and I’m really, really pleased with them. Mostly what’s turning me off with my current hosting provider is the weird interface they have to administrate the site and some arcane practices. I found it almost next to impossible to repoint one of my domains the other day. It should have been much easier but the instructions on the interface were nuts. Like most things though I figured it out and the redirect went through fine.
Some designers get it and some don’t but if you’ve been looking at redesigning your site and want the “cool web 2.0″ feel then you’re just a click away. Web Design from Scratch, a design-centric site, has posted a nice article on the things that make the 2.0 feel what it is.
Web Design from Scratch: The list below is a summary of many of the common features of typical “Web 2.0″ sites.
Clearly, a site doesn’t need to exhibit all these features to work well, and displaying these features doesn’t make a design “2.0″ - or good!
1. Simplicity
2. Central layout
3. Fewer columns
4. Separate top section
5. Solid areas of screen real-estate
6. Simple nav
7. Bold logos
8. Bigger text
9. Bold text introductions
10. Strong colours
11. Rich surfaces
12. Gradients
13. Reflections
14. Cute icons
15. Star flashes
If you’re an avid photographer or a designer who uses the Adobe line of products such as Photoshop and Illustrator then be sure to get the new Camera Raw Plugin. This iteration, 3.6, supports new cameras including the Canon XTi and Nikon D80 as well as improves functionality of the plugin.
Adobe: “The camera raw functionality in Adobe© Photoshop© software provides fast and easy access within Photoshop to the “raw” image formats produced by many leading professional and midrange digital cameras. By working with these “digital negatives,” you can achieve the results you want with greater artistic control and flexibility while still maintaining the original “raw” files.”
One of the most often overlooked things in web design is “how will users interact with the site?” Web Design from Scratch looks at attention mapping and how taking a little time before you design can help you reap great rewards.
Web Design from Scratch: “Attention mapping is a tool to help you start to plan a visual layout around realistic communication between user and site.It can also be a helpful analysis tool, helping you work out what’s wrong about a layout.
The most important elements on a page are those that help the user (and site) achieve their goals. Those things should be nearest to hand, and in positions where they’ll be seen.
Attention maps are great because it is much quicker and easier to sketch out your priorities first on paper than to try to do it as you go in Photoshop etc.”
Once again Typographica has posted a very interesting list recounting the years favorite fonts. If you’re into design this is something you’re going to want to take a look at.
Sometimes as creative people we need a little diversion to help inspire us. Keri Smith has found a great way by creating a list of things to do. Here’s the first 33:
Keri Smith
1. Go for a walk. Draw or list things you find on the the sidewalk. 2. Write a letter to yourself in the future. 3. Buy something inexpensive as a symbol for your need to create, (new pen, a tea cup, journal). Use it everyday. 4. Draw your dinner. 5. Find a piece of poetry you respond to. Rewrite it and glue it into your journal. 6. Glue an envelope into your journal. For one week collect items you find on the street. 7. Expose yourself to a new artist, (go to a gallery, or in a book.) Write about what moves you about it. 8. Find a photo of a person you do not know. Write a brief bio about them. 9. Spend a day drawing only red things. 10. Draw your bike. 11. Make a list of everything you buy in the next week. 12. Make a map of everywhere you went in one day. 13. Draw a map of the creases on your hand, (knuckles, palm) 14. Trace your footsteps with chalk. 15. Record an overheard conversation. 16. Trace the path of the moon in relation to where you live. 17. Go to a paint store. Collect ‘chips’ of all your favorite colors. 18. Draw your favorite tree. 19. Take 15 minutes to eat an orange. 20. Write a haiku. 21. Hang upside down for five minutes. 22. Hang found objects from tree branches. 23. Make a puppet. 24. Create an outdoor room from things you find in nature. 25. Read a book in one day. 26. Illustrate your grocery list. 27. Read a story out loud to a friend. 28. Write a letter to someone you admire. 29. Study the face of someone you do not like. 30. Make a meal based on a color theme. (i.e. all white). 31. Creat a museum of very small things. 32. List the smells in your neighborhood. 33. List 100 uses for a tin can.
She’s a great artist also so be sure to check out the rest of the list and her illustrations.
Here’s a question I posed to a colleague this morning.
You go to a doctor right. He says, “You’ve got cancer on your spleen. We’re going to remove your spleen.” You don’t say, “Let me see the xray…I don’t think that’s a cancer. I’m gonna prescribe myself 500mg daily of DrugX.” Right?
So why do you go to a graphic designer, pay them to make you something then say, “I think this should be over here and this over here and that over there.” You’re paying them for their expertise right? For their knowledge and skills? If not you could have done it yourself.
Trust in the skills and knowledge of your designer. They’re there to help you make good design decisions.