Yep, finally got my new design online and the comments are functional! I still have one or two links to add on the homepage, but it is 99.9999% complete.

The overall design is far from my my comfort zone. Usually I go for pixel perfect, very clean web design. Although I have experimented with grungy designs before this is the only time I was really happy with the result.

Words cannot describe how much Dribbble has influenced me in creating this. Having a constant stream of tremendously talented designers displaying what they are working on at the moment really got me thinking of the subtle details I could add to make this site look more presentable. On the flip side, I have edited some things over 50 times just to get things right.

Bold statements

What I’ve done on the homepage even surprised myself. I have abandoned the portfolio images altogether, and I’ve kept writing to a minimum. This is all new to me, and I dont know if it will work well , but I may as well try it before I scrap it.

League Gothic

Yes, this font is used in abundance throughout this theme. Its probably one of my favorite free fonts to use in my projects and I’m using font-face to embed it on my site. I could have used a javascript method like Cufón or Typekit, but I’ve found that  fonts behave better when being used normally. Oh and the added bonus of this being free was nice too.

Portfolio

My portfolio page has gotten a drastic overhaul with larger images. This has been missing from my designs for much too long, so I’m pleased with the outcome. I have quite a few projects still to add to that section so thats not quite there either.

Articles

Starting this project, I had considered going entirely sidebar-less in order to get the user to focus on the content in the articles directly. But then realising that the rate of which I post is about once a month, I thought that the content of this “blog” wasn’t all that important.

Overall I’m happy with this new layout. And although I’m bound to have the exactly opposite opinion in a few months, I thinks its a fairly accurate representation of where I’m at as a web designer.

Sadly this is going to change mid-September, due to another refresh. I’m not happy with the comic feel to the website. It looks dated already, I ended up using lots of images. It doesnt portray exactly what I hope to achieve from it.

I’ve been extremely busy with college work and work work but I hope to get some time to do some stuff when I get my break at the end of August.

You can follow what I’m doing on Dribbble (whenever I’m up to posting)

Things I hope to rectify with the new design

• Comments (I totally forgot to add this)
• Smarter, sharper look (I’m about 60% pleased with what I have so far)
• Focus on my services and promote myself better
• My Tumblr (Its already in the menu but I hope to integrate it better with the site in the future)
• An About Page (about time)

I was also given the opportunity to be in the new Web Designer Magazine, but I missed the deadline for submission. So I think I’ll hold off until the new site is up and functional before I submit it again.

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!

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.

So What’s New?

Well, seeing as I’ve put in three months on and off work on it, I’ve made quite a few changes. Firstly I’ve moved to a new host, which has been great, excellent service extremely reliable and most of all, it was dirt cheap. ThisWebHost hasn’t failed me yet, and I’m not sure that it will any time soon.

The design is different. The inaugural Miralize design with my Macbook obviously sports Apple references, but also sites such as atebits.com ( really all of Tim Van Damme’s work really). The main reason I redesigned it this time because the previous incarnation was much too dark, and I wanted to brighten it up a bit. I’m using FuturaStd on my site for those on browsers with @font-face support. I’ve also added the following.

• WordPress 2.9 support (already in love with the_post_thumbnail, canonical links, and the built in image editor)
• Twitter and Feed stats
• New logo (may change soon)
• Size and speed – Drastically cut loading times with this new site so it should be less straining on your browser.
• Full IE support. Yes I finally

Also worth nothing that some of the pages may be unavailable, but this is to change very soon (and I mean it). I’m doing something very interesting with the portfolio page to make my life so much easier than it was before.

What’s next?

Obviously I want the portfolio and about pages completed, but also a few extra things may creep into the design soon.

• HTML5 – Should be interesting.
• Twitter and Facebook connect commenting
• Most importantly, decent and regular articles.

Thanks!

Thanks for being patient with me. I know I probably don’t deserve it. Now that its arrived, what do you think? Leave a comment below

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.

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.

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

My favourite part of the site has to be the tabbed content on the top-right. It allows me to display a huge amount of information in a small box. These lists were grabbed by using SimplePie, which is without a doubt my favourite way of integrating content (besides WordPress of course).

The homepage is not up properly, and there are tweaks to be fixed. Some of the links may not work, and although I shouldnt let that happen, they are bound to occur. My portfolio is not up yet and my about page is minimally styled. But so far, I think this is the most complete design I have ever made.

Enjoy.

Wow the N97 looks good, even in pink. These shots we nabbed by Engadget a few hours ago and I cant stop staring at its beauty. Bernie has said positive things about this phone, which should be arriving in Summer 2009.

Specs include:

• Keyboard
• HSDPA, WiFi, and Bluetooth radios
• A-GPS
• A 3.5mm headjack
• 32GB (pwoarh!) of memory with microSD slot (48 GB total)
• 1.5 days of battery with continuous audio playback
• 5MP Carl Zeiss Camera

Oh and did I mention that it had a 3.5” touchscreen?Indeed Nokia have been working very hard at this. It’s like they took a page out of James May’s book and kept repeating “Poweeeeer!”

My contract with o2 is not up until the summer of 2010 which gives Nokia enough time to lower the price and to give me time to save.

Following the sneak preview of Digg’s latest online tool a few weeks ago, it has finally arrived. Yesterday, Kevin Rose introduced the toolbar publically for the first time. It has a short-url service, easy posting to Facebook, Twitter, and Email. Articles are now easier to Digg, and (finally) you are able to see just how much of a Digg effect each page gets.

Digg has come along way, this is the natural evolution for a site like this, and it might be the most significant as of yet.

Heres an introduction video from Digg

DiggBar from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

The features

Diggurl

As Kevin said, you can “create the bar with any page on the web”. All you have to do to shorten a link is put “http://digg.com/” before your link, and it will shorten your URL automatically. So if I wanted to shorten my Design a WordPress 2.7 Link, I would make the link

http://digg.com/http://miralize.com/web-design/wordpress-theme/design-a-wordpress-27-theme/.

And once loaded the URL is

http://digg.com/d1mx53.

Easy huh?

Social Network Integration.

Every avid Tweeter knows of Kevin Rose’s fondness for the social network, and now its even easier to post the things you Digg into the places you are in. Right now, only Facebook and Twitter are supported but I’m sure that will change soon. You can also send a link via Email, or by shouting out to one of your own friends on Digg.

Main Items

As this is the Diggbar, naturally they have the Digg numbers and comments easily available.  One of the more interesting items from this, is the ability to see how many views Digg gave you. At last, we can see in depth the full extent of this mythical Digg Effect. You’re also able to view your site without the iFrame by clicking the URL, or by clicking the giant X at the top right of the Diggbar

Random Button

Ok for everyone who says this is a jab at StumbleUpon, you might be right. This feature is alright. I am a bit weary of the fact that it just loads front page or Popular Stories, rather than any page that has been dugg, but hey there is always room for improvement

So Digg hit their first Home Run of 2009. It’s definitely going to turn a few heads. Next on their list is Facebook Connect integration, and a vastly improved search engine. Digg has needed this, having lost traffic to Twitter, and with accusations of people gaming Digg. This wont change how you use Digg, as msaleem said, but it should keep you there for that extra bit longer.