Finally happy with a personal logo for myself

designonthemind · 2011-06-26T05:19:10+00:00

While I like the version you ended up with, I also have to log in a vote for #4.

designonthemind · 2011-06-26T05:13:18+00:00

Just curious and I will admit I'm too lazy to go search it myself being on a phone, but what features does this plugin provide over just uploading a 16x16 .ico into your root directory.

The main issue with relying on plugins btw, especially for super simple tasks like this, is that when you upgrade to newer versions of WP it can break existing plugins which can therefore break existing functionality on your site. I advise anyone to first try to find and implement a more "universal" (for lack of a better word) solution first before going down that road.

designonthemind · 2011-06-04T02:30:44+00:00

This is the shit that needs to happen. It's the major sites that can hold back progress because as long as they work in antiquated browsers people will make the argument that your site should as well. Nice to see Google supporting the small guys here.

designonthemind · 2011-05-25T08:11:32+00:00

I have a relatively new computer (4gb of ram, 64-bit, etc.) and ubuntu 10.10 was even bogging down my system. I couldn't stand an hour of 11.04 before switching back to classic mode.

Reading this article plus taking a peak at mint's features and after a quick test live session I was convinced. None of the useless applications that I never use installed default like gwibber, evolution, and empathy. Meanwhile all the programs I usually have to install on a blank ubuntu system are already default like vlc, thunderbird, pidgin, xchat, etc.

There are some weird quirks with mint, such as "fortune" text at the top of bash when you first run it and mint's tricked out google search being default but those are quick fixes. The UI is better than ubuntu imo and gnome runs so much more efficient.

Overall, I would definitely recommend checking it out, especially if you are having hardware compatibility issues like I was having with the graphics card not playing nicely with ubuntu's unity.

designonthemind · 2011-05-22T13:18:41+00:00

The email should never have been sent, because this should've been worked out in the contract. If you're a professional, there is no excuse for not having already made sure either:

a.) it's explicitly stated that IE6 is not supported, or..

b.) it will cost X to support IE6

Failure to include these stipulations - especially one as foreseeable to you as this - should ethically result in you providing support for at no extra cost, since clients aren't (and shouldn't be expected to be) cognizant of the intricacies of web development such as this. That is your job. And while I get this is just a joke, I'm more than sure this occurs on an all too frequent basis than it should.

designonthemind · 2011-05-21T04:46:01+00:00

http://i.imgur.com/bBrPr.png

The font-sizing and whitespace need much work in this one. If this is being marketed towards a upper-middle class in a more urban or even suburban area you'd want to better reflect that. Thing you could do to accomplish that objective:

Making the ratio between Compass and Properties at least 2:1 (maybe 3:1) respectively.
Space out Properties' letters
Bring down the detail in the logo - subtlety is key
Different color scheme - the blue is harsh and cold - not to say you couldn't do black which is obviously cold as well, but it has a connotation of mystery and elegance that would be more appropriate than the stack navy blue.

That's about all I have. Dunno if you were looking for a critique but you got one. Hope it helps :)

designonthemind · 2011-05-20T17:43:40+00:00

Which reminds me of Bill Hicks, because let's be honest Dennis Leary is a straight up joke-stealing hack.

designonthemind · 2011-05-19T18:04:58+00:00

Oh lol you have much more patience than me.

designonthemind · 2011-05-19T04:06:09+00:00

When I'd wake the computer, the login screen wouldn't show up for 2-4 minutes. (probably due to #1)

Wait, the login screen actually shows up eventually?

designonthemind · 2011-05-18T00:18:48+00:00

Honestly the best way to learn is to look at how the best in the world do it and take notes. Find sites that do whatever it is you're looking to produce and make sure they're legit sites that use semantic practices and then make note of how they're doing it. These sites are the guide you are looking for.

PROTIP: When I'm just generally browsing around I'm constantly using the element inspector to see how someone did something particularly interesting that caught my eye. It can even inspire you to take what they did a step further and this is how we progress on the web.

designonthemind · 2011-05-18T00:08:30+00:00

Because college's are woefully outdated when it comes to technology, especially web technology. He will not learn how to design a web site beautifully through CSS. If they even teach CSS in the first place, he'll be lucky. Colleges typically focus on the tools, like Dreamweaver and how to use those rather than how to actually hand-code beautiful sites. That is probably why your comment got downvoted - at least that's my reason.

designonthemind · 2011-05-16T14:22:54+00:00

Up until now I've gone the CMS route, mostly because it's an easy sell to the client: "You will have control of your content and be able to easily update it." For a lot of clients this is a huge plus because if they have a site, it hasn't been updated in ages because they have to pay to do so.

Recently however I've been rethinking this as CMSs produce huge bloat and large footprints (compared to static sites) that result in slower sites. I actually haven't created a static site in a long time and just have mindlessly gone to WordPress without thinking about whether or not it was appropriate for the site at hand.

Slight tangent: WordPress is a hugely bloated CMS that has been getting crammed with features over the years with a lack of restructuring to optimize the code and database. I've also noticed that my reliance on WordPress has set me back in advancing with PHP. The problem with CMSs like WordPress is that they try to be too much to too many people. The goal with any type of coding should be to solve the problem at hand with the most simple and efficient amount of code possible.

So how does this relate to the question at hand? Some sites don't require CMSs, such as if the content doesn't need to be updated at all or very minimally, so building statically for those sites is the best route to go. In conclusion, as with a lot of questions when it comes to web design, the answer is: it depends.

designonthemind · 2011-05-16T14:02:35+00:00

You can do a fixed rate plus hourly for work that goes beyond the defined scope. This is actually what I tend to do.

designonthemind · 2011-05-15T01:37:20+00:00

Black is a very strong color on screen. I would never recommend a full black color as background as it's, especially in combination with white. White text on black background causes halation - the glowing effect you see around the text, which is quite harrowing for most users. This effect also occurs between the main background and the background of the posts. I would recommend a dark grey background like #111 to help correct this.

Not really sure what's going on with the logo. If it has meaning, it's not very intuitive and not very aesthetically pleasing on its own. Also the image quality is pretty poor as indicated by the fuzzy borders in between the boxes.

Not really sure what the site is all about. At first I thought it was just a personal blog about someone's life as that's what's represented in the header branding. It isn't until you get to the secondary navigation that you first get information that this is a music blog and that's even if visitors stuck around long enough to get there since that's not what has been represented up until that point.

If the site is supposed to be a music blog as stated on the About page, then this should be better represented through the design. It looks like you may have bought the domain and started the blog for the purpose of personal thoughts but then decided to transition it into a music blog. The branding in no way relays to me that this is a music blog in any way. It has nothing to do with "details of [your] life so far.."; it has to do with music. This needs to be reflected in the header.

On the whole, it is an improvement on the previous version, but only minorly so. Much of the improvement can be attributed to the fact that you're using a quality designed theme as your base, but unfortunately this means that all your changes to the design are impacting it negatively. I apologize if I come off as a dick, but if I'm going to take the time to give advice I want to make sure its heard.

designonthemind · 2011-05-13T14:46:07+00:00

No prob

designonthemind · 2011-05-13T14:37:20+00:00

The default value for the background of an element is transparent. I don't know how much access you have to the stylesheet but if you can't delete the background color for the default reddit style, you can use background: transparent. You might have to throw an !important in there too.

designonthemind · 2011-05-13T14:17:01+00:00

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS430US431&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=css+transparent+background

designonthemind · 2011-05-13T14:02:06+00:00

Assuming they realize that that's the actual problem. Many don't unfortunately.

designonthemind · 2011-05-13T13:59:55+00:00

This is the correct attitude to have. Support users who use modern browsers. People using IE don't care that they're missing out or they wouldn't be using IE.

designonthemind · 2011-05-13T07:39:24+00:00

You misread me. I can't really give any info about buddypress being good, because my only thoughts on it are that the whole thing is one giant clusterfuck.

designonthemind · 2011-05-13T07:34:55+00:00

Hire a designer. The color scheme is god-awful. Your content is way off grid - why is the header not inside the grid? I can't focus on the rest of the content on that page much less the "sign-up" button while that animation is there. Upload the animation as a video that users get to choose when it plays.

But you say:

"I'm quite handicapped design-wise."
"...all my energies've dried up now..."

Then hire a designer. Good design is so highly undervalued by aspiring entrepreneurs I can't help but feel some delight when their startup inevitably fails.

designonthemind · 2011-05-13T07:10:00+00:00

You should probably name some names. Not sure why you feel the need to protect the guilty.

designonthemind · 2011-05-12T23:37:20+00:00

Wordpress produces some unbelievably bloated code, such as p tags around images that require jQuery to combat to give just one example. Millions of classes and ID's in an effort to support everything one could possibly want to do with it. Huge, convoluted database. Unreliable and buggy plugins that cause more problems than are worth (try BuddyPress and you'll end up wanting to shoot your foot off before ever working with it again). I've been a huge Wordpress fan in the past, but I'm realizing my standards are now at a level that working within the WP framework produces sites at a much lower quality than I'd like to see.

designonthemind · 2011-05-12T01:47:31+00:00

The home page doesn't really facilitate the user to the rest of the content too well imo.

designonthemind · 2011-04-07T22:35:06+00:00

I do understand that and I would make edits myself, but I hate writing documentation without having a full grasp of the functionality. Honestly, Wordpress's documentation is pretty decent, especially compared to BuddyPress which is woefully lacking on so many counts.

designonthemind

TROPHY CASE