Happy Monday!
Posted on March 14, 2011
I haven’t been in the best of moods lately, but a nice afternoon yesterday, waking up to a lovely sunny day and a small dose of The Lion King inspired me to do a quick little graphic. I’m so drawn to oranges/yellows/pinks lately (e.g. my blog layout!) and using them definitely gives me a good feeling.
Have a wonderful week! :)
x
Bigger, Better, Brighter
Posted on February 21, 2011
Ok so…I made a new layout already. Slightly ridiculous I know seeing as the other one was only up for a week but there was just something about it that I didn’t like. My blog is where; not only do I want to have my little space of the internet and talk about shit that I like but I also want to be able to showcase my talent and I feel this design shows me in a better light! Plus, it’s much more fun, vibrant and eye-catching and looks much nicer with white space than the muted colour palette I was previously using did.
There are still a few kinks I need to sort out (the comments, what a mess!) but I was too excited to keep this one to myself!
For anyone interested in the banner/how my brain works, I made it in Photoshop rather than Illustrator. I was just messing about really, I tend to come up with ideas and do mockups of things in Photoshop rather than in a sketchbook. I just find my mind works a lot better drawing digitally than by hand for some reason. I know it goes against what any graphics teacher will say (‘sketch, sketch, sketch! Don’t go straight to your computer and open photoshop!’) but I believe in doing what works best for you! Anyway, I was sketching away and a yellow rectangle turned into a yellow rectangle with white lines all over it (inspired by this cushion), then drawing a ribbon shape with the pen tool, duplicating it and masking it over this yellow liney background. It took me a while to figure out what to do as a centrepiece and I went through some various ideas from using the ‘stamp’ in my previous banner in different colours until I eventually just shoved a crappy phone photo of myself in there and pen tooled over it, then went for the cameo look with the frame.
Let me know what you think and if you find something that is broken/crappy, please tell me! Haha!
x
Cellardoor Magazine Website
Posted on August 24, 2010
One of many firsts this summer was creating a website that wasn’t for myself or for a uni project. Cellardoor Magazine came onto my radar when they started following me on twitter back in July. I checked out their magazine which I was really impressed by and followed them back. They posted a tweet asking if there were any web designers out there and I decided to take the plunge and throw myself out there.
One of my first issues was how to approach a freelance project. I read lots of design blogs with tips for freelancers but it is a very different ball game actually taking one on for the first time.
To anyone in a similar position starting out, there is a wealth of useful knowledge out there on blogs. Smashing Magazine is great but a quick google for tips for freelance web designers is incredibly useful too; just know what tips to actually use and what ones not to. The most important thing is know who you are designing for – seems obvious but it’s so, so important and the trunk of the tree that everything else branches off from I guess. Even before asking their needs, a quick assessment of their magazines and their blog gave me a good idea of their aesthetic and it was something that matched mine and felt like something comfortable and managable for a first freelance project.
After asking what they wanted and were looking for, I went and made some sketches and mockups on photoshop. Most designers will probably tell you to start at a sketchbook before even thinking about opening photoshop but I’m not the greatest artist and find it a lot easier to create and to draw digitally than I do with a pencil and paper.
I made a number of sketches and a few mockups, some which I decided didn’t quite cut the mustard. The two above are 2 of 3 final mockups I sent to Jade and Amy, the girls behind the magazine.
If you’ve visited their site, we obviously went with the first design.
From here was when I had to use my head a little bit more. The design then went into illustrator to make the header but between then and the final product a lot of changes were made and I probably should have made it easier for myself by definitely knowing the tabs before beginning to change it.
The coding process is a bore but once I get past blank page syndrome I like building it up. I was mindful of keeping it simple and presented neatly so in the future, it could be edited for future issues without much confusion.
While we had initially hoped that we could implement the layout for blog use, their hosting package didn’t allow databases (thus ruling out wordpress and it’s flexibility) but the major problem was once trying to create a blog layout, it became apparent that the design was not going to suit a blog layout. Especially as their needs would actually require them to have a 3 column layout, it just became increasingly apparent it was going to happen. Better planning could have avoided this. We came to the conclusion it’d be best for them to have a seperate blog layout, like NEET magazine has. This is yet to be created and I’m not sure yet as to what will happen with that.
What have I learnt? Well, better planning always but that is definitely something I haven’t quite gotten right in any aspect of my life and something I definitely need to crack down on.
