Here’s a few things that need to be completed (still) : (A) I need to finish page structure for chronology, portfolio and social; (B) I need to decide on an accent color scheme. I’m currently debating between reds, yellows or oranges (possibly all three? gasp!); (C) Update the text for several pages; (D) Re-create portfolio entries to be more uniformed; (E) Add new pieces to the portfolio section; (F) Integrate a twitter / tweet system as well as last.fm for social; (G) Create header banners to rotate; (H) Add a contact form; . . . (Z) Progressive Enhancements: (1) Incorporate AJAX and (2) Add lightbox.

In other news, my third year at Parsons started August 31st, 2009 (a weird start date) and things are going incredibly well. I’m getting my ass handed to me a little and I’m definitely feeling the pressure, but it’s what I’ve been hoping for! I’m still interning at Pando as a design consultant / psuedo web-developer until they find a replacement. A few major changes that I want to dedicate real posts, so expect them!

As the title suggests, I’ve been a bit starved for creativity. It’s led to a slight lack of motivation which has caused me to be a little more lazy than one should be. Hopefully with a new website release and the gain of an internship (perhaps I’m counting my chicks too soon), I’ll be a bit more productive. Not to mention, I’m a bit broke for the summer at the moment.

More details on the site soon…though I’m thinking of something a bit more over the edge and crazy than reserved like the last three versions =]

All that print work from the school kept me a bit occupied from doing digital work, so I’ve missed out a lot! In order to prevent myself from becoming restless I’ve decided to make a checlist for the summer. Things I must do!

The Summer Checklist

1. Play catch up in the digital world
2. Understand the basics of PHP (that isn’t related to just wordpress) and AJAX
3. Re-design the website
4. Update the portfolio & resumé
5. Land myself an internship and/or freelance gig
6. Keep up in appearances
7. Take the chance to read a novel that isn’t related to design

I received better grades than I thought from all my classes, but still was a bit disappointed with my overall work produced from the semester. That just means I need to work my ass off a lot more. Also, after speaking with some other designers from other schools, I’ve realized that Parsons hasn’t updated my department’s curriculum in a while. Which has led me to fill out transfer applications. Who knows where I’ll be next year?

Now I hate to say I was busy, but I was, and pretty much why this site fell through the cracks. Well I’m trying to work on that, so I hope with this theme which I entitled, in an ever so cheesy attempt to be clever, “Rezolutions”.

What’s new with ‘Rezolutions’? It’s a column-based design surrounding columns of 320px to add to a maximum width of 960px. I feel it falls very much in line with other grid-system layouts, with a few variations for different features, sections, etc. Another noticeable difference is color, or the lack thereof. I wanted something very clean cut and mature-looking. A lot of times I tried to incorporate colors that were in my mood, but I found myself quickly bored with those layouts. It seems counterproductive to not use color in that sense, but I think I accomplished a layout that I generally like more than the others. I will note that I did add a little color, Pantone 295C for link hovers. There might be a few more accent colors coming, but for now I’m going to keep it sweet and simple. Also, as part of one of my new resolutions, there shouldn’t be an ounce of Helvetica or Helvetica Neue on this site, at all. I’ve used Century for the header and headlines and Georgia for the content / body of the site. Most of my layouts featured the use of both serif and sans-serif, or mostly sans-serif, but over the years as a designer I’ve come to love serif a lot more. There’s just more character.

The most noticeable change, in my opinion, is the fact that there’s an actual portfolio page. What does that mean? It means I’m going to work my ass off to actually have a portfolio section up and running.

And with that said, I hope everyone had a great New Years, and that 2009 has started off in a good light. Everyone’s been asking what resolutions I’ve made, so here are mine:

1. Be more diligent and productive in 2009.
2. Learn jQuery and AJAX (2a. And become adept with at least one of them).
3. Refrain from using ‘Helvetica’ and ‘Helvetiva Neue’ for any and all designs.
4. Conform to the use of grid systems using rational and irrationals proportions.
5. Be a better friend and lover.

What are your resolutions for the new year?

Out of the list of speakers are a few icons / idols of mine (they’re italicized), and getting to listen, speak and even just shake hands with them was exciting. I definitely felt like a groupie next to some of them. For the most part, the presentations were great. There were one or two that I thought fell behind in quality in comparison to others. But overall it was an excellent conference, and I was disappointed to find out that there weren’t a lot of college students there (at least, undergraduates).

There were a few highlights I wante to share with everyone:

• Designers and Developers must work together. Instead of designers handing off a photoshop’d design and hoping that the developers will keep the design intact, developers and designers should collaborate together. (Ryan Singer states that the “waterfall” hand-off effect should be replaced by designers and developers having a shared iteration of the source code.)
• Designers need to explain their choices. A lot of times, designers make choices in their design that aren’t made for a specific reason other than the fact that it looks pretty. Designers need to ask themselves “Why?” when adding an element, choosing a color, etc.
• Progressive Enhancement. Designs should start off simple and be able to support everyone. Once that’s achieved, elements that will enhance the user’s experience should be added.
• Designers need to step away from the computer more often. The longer we are at the computer, the small the rest of the world becomes to us. To quote Nick La, “The internet is smaller than your environment.”

At the end of the conference I found out I won the ThinkVitamin contest =) We were asked to submit tips that would help other designers and developers. I was shocked that I won! I wonder how many people entered. The cool thing is that my tip is going to be featured on their new feature “Daily Dose”. As Ryan Carson said, “It’s good PR!”

Also, the next article fo the Blog series is being written!

I’m entitling this design Fresh & Me which might sound a little…lame to some, but I thought it was appropriate. It’s my second entirely hand-made WP theme, using some advanced techniques that I’ve learned along the way. I tried to keep it very simple, and then I was running into a ‘I really don’t like it’ so I changed it up some and this was the final concept.

The main color of choice is Pantone 380 C and the three fonts presented are Violation Script (logo), Gill Sans (headlines) and Helvetiva Neue (content). I was original going to use SRG Clean Archives but then stumbled upon an old post from DevLounge “Custom Archive Queries For WordPress” which came as a blessing, and now my Archives page will be simple and clean. Something that I’m looking forward to updating is my directory page. Other than linking to friends and designers that I admire, I’m hoping to compile a large list of resourceful sites for designers, old and new. Unfortunately I haven’t touched the portfolio section, but rest assured it’ll be there in the near future. I promise.

I thought I was finished with this theme a little over a week ago, but while reading digg and reading articles on design, I landed on an old article that made me realize that I had a lot of flaws. If you haven’t read RA Project’s “Things to Avoid: What Makes Me Nervous When Reading Your Blog” then you might want to read and double-check (followup with DevLounge’s “15 Design Decisions That Annoy People“).

With earlier designs, people had told me that my earlier designs had font sizes that were too large, so I returned to the  font-size of 12. One of the things that I agree with Simonne is the fact that a lot of sites do have small font sizes, and to me I kind of feel like 12 is small on the screen. I increased the font-size to 14 and I feel somewhat comfortable with that size.

The next object on the list was the RSS feed. I didn’t forget it, I had it on the sidebar as just a text-link. While digging for inspiration few months back, I had seen a lot of sites with kickass RSS feed buttons, and so I figured that I’d try creating my own and it might not be the best button ever created but it works, and it’s there!

I spent the a few hours Labor Day weekend configuring my comments section so that they appeared cleaner, and then I learned that I was one, of many, that did not have a “subscribe to comments” feature. I was getting frustrated when I couldn’t find out how to do this on my own via wordpress.org, but luckily I found Mark Jaquith’s Subscribe to Comments plugin.

And the last thing that I never really used was “Related Posts”. For something that doesn’t take a lot of effort (it’s a plugin for christ sakes), I really don’t know why I never bothered with it. I guess my reason was being lazy, and that’s not a good reason.

And with that said, I am planning to write an article on (Re-)Designing a Blog. It’ll be my first real article! Also, my previous readers of my personal blog faraway words, you’ll have to register in order to view my daily rants. I apologize for the inconvenience, however I want to make my blog more professional.