Redesigning is a drug and I’m an Addict.

I just cannot seem to keep a version of my site online longer than a few months at most. This one, Miralize Design v10, came from me absolutely hating the last design, which only lasted a month (a record I think). Its also the fastest from conception and design to final release, a mere 14 hours of work. I’m actually quite happy with it, as I now have the portfolio launched too.

The blog template now looks more like a blog, rather than a gimmicky excuse for one. One of the most important things about any website is the fact that “Content is key”, and I think I forgot that last time. I have what I need on the side of every post, and nothing more. I always say I’m going to post weekly, but now that it looks pretty, I think I can manage at least one post a week.

Still no HTML5, still set in my ways of XHTML Transitional. Lots of CSS3 though, and @font-face is being used extensively. The theme for this theme is “BIG!”. Big heading text on the homepage, big footer and the font is easily readable. There is no more useless jQuery that slows down the site, and while IE6 isn’t fully supported yet, I’m here all week.

I think this is a very much needed update to the site. If I’m going to attract clients, I might as well showcase the best I’ve made in a while. But of course, no design is perfect, so if anyone has any changes/features they’d like to see here, please leave a comment!

Oh and by the way, if you have a design blog/site and you want to have a link in the sidebar, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

Miralize v9 : Merry Christmas

Hey folks, hope you’re all having great holidays. I definitely am, especially now that Miralize version 9 is released. Yes, the same “Miralize v9″ that I’ve been tweeting about since late September. And the same one I have posted images about. The reason for the extremely long delay was because of college, and the business with others.

Designrlink and Topofthenet

Part of being a desinger/developer is filling open gaps in the market. The sites I’m building wont. Well not exactly. There are dozens of CSS Gallleries, and honestly I’m quite sick of them. The problem is, what else are you supposed to do with a domain called Topofthe.net? A toplist? I think not.

The other one is also user-generated, but its about collecting links to decent design/development articles. The thing I like about these sites is that they have the same design. I’m a sucker for uniformity. Am I hinting may be the start of a long list of sites , maybe turning into a network? I dont know.

I’ve been working on these sites sporadically over the summer. But things are taking a turn for the better, I’m working faster than usual, and I hope to have at least one online before the weekend is over.

Why? First and foremost, I’m doing this to fill out my portfolio (which is coming soon, honest!!). Secondly its gonna make me think, something I havent had to do since mid-May. And thirdly I’ve domains to use and I’ve been putting it off for much too long.

For more info about either follow their Twitter Accounts @topofthenet and @designrlink

Stay tuned.

New Design…. Again

Yes sadly, my Macbook has shed light on a very visible design flaw in most of my designs, until now that is. I’ve been accidentally using Color Management in Photoshop, and that renders the colours differently on OSX. And I’ve been doing this for years. There should be a very big warning when starting Photoshop to stop idiots like me from doing this. And to think, if I hadn’t switched OS’, it might have been years until I had realized the mistakes I have been making, I might have missed out on important clients, lost grades in college, and considered generally to be the worst designer of the 21st Century.

But today I unveiled version 9.. yes version 9 of my not-so-popular website/blog/portfolio. 9 designs in the space of 9 months. That has to be some kind of record, no? And if it isn’t , it should be. People say that a designers worst client is themselves, they are never happy with their site looks. But I think this one has potential.

Dark and Dirty. The icons are not mine, but from two free icon sets from Function, and while they are fantastic, they dont go very well. I like the form of the icons, but they are too varied and I really wanted some consistency. I may ask them to develop some, once I have failed miserably in Illustrator.

I’ve added a lot of functionality into this one, some of which were evident in my previous design iteration. Things like the auto-incrementing Twitter followers number in the sidebar, the links at the bottom of this post that post to Twitter, Facebook etc.. really adds some interaction to the site, which I want. Unlike utterly generic web 2.0107868689769 crap that looks out of place, but is seen on over a million blogs.

I’ve finally gotten to the stage where I can pretty much do the design I want, usually I would do something in Photoshop, but be too worried that it would be impossible to replicate in a Browser. Also I’m pretty proud that I did this solely on a new machine, a machine which I have so much to learn still. I used Coda for the first time too, and honestly it is without a doubt the best text editor I have ever used.

Overall, am I happy with this design? Sure. Do I think I could improve it? Definitely. Does this mean that I wont change it drastically in under a month? Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

Manson MB-1 Guitar: Pure Awesomness

The signature guitar of Muse’s frontman, Matt Bellamy, is being produced commercially, and it truly is the guitar of the future.  The Kaoss pad can control anything from lighting effects to midi controllers.

For more info, go here

 

-Alder Body
-Birds Eye Maple Neck
-Rosewood Fingerboard
-MBK-2 Bridge Humbucker
-Fernandes Sustainer Humbucking Neck Pickup
-Fixed Bridge
-Gotoh 510 Machine Heads
-Kill Switch
-Volume, Tone
-Sustainer On/Off Switch
-Sustainer – Harmonic/Fundamental Switch
-3-way Pickup Selector Switch
-Manson Deluxe Logo Hard Case