P.S. Blog

As mentioned before, I've been meaning to do some design process posts and finally I've gotten around to do it! (Lol awkward introduction)

Anyway, my dear friend Polele asked me to redesign her blog at Tumblr. Now, I'm really not that well-versed in Tumblr (case in point: my very own Tumblr blog) design-wise and I was actually trying to convince her to switch to Blogger instead but since all of her posts are already in there PLUS she's already comfortable blogging in Tumblr, I just took it as a challenge of sorts (yes okay, I'm kinda pathetic that I had to use that as a motivational tool lol).

She only asked for four things on her blog:

1. The color scheme would be black and white
2. The header would say P.S. (her initials)
3. The font on the header would be cartoon-y/comic-y (ok I really don't know how to categorize that)
4. She'd like a nav bar with the following links: Random, Doodles, Travels, Contact

HEADER
When I first typed "P.S" it seemed too simple for me. I mean I'm all for white space and all that minimalistic vibe but it was waaay to simple. It's just 4 characters...in black.

So while I was damn sure this is the sort of thing she wanted, I kind of wanted to push my boundaries (LOL) and see if there's something else I could work with... and I came up with this.

Polele is a big fan of pandas and a part of me hoped she will pick this one because, well I don't want to sound like a d-bag but... IT'S GENIUS RIGHT? It's a panda (reiterating the fact that SHE IS A BIG FAN OF PANDAS), it displayed the clean minimalistic look I was going for and it's in black and white AAAAND it has the P and S she requested.

Before I had her make a choice between these two headers, I decided to look for more fonts and switch up the first banner I've created. The big bold black letters were kinda off-putting because I had to create a nav bar underneath it, also in (slightly smaller) bold black letters. So hours and hours of browsing through the font catalogue and I finally decided on this one.

And sure enough, she picked the latter one. It was still a really good choice though. Maybe the panda could be her logo then? No? Okay.

NAV BAR
There was no contest in the font I was to choose for her nav bar. The only thing I would say about this is it was so hard to code the damn nav bar, especially in the hover part. It took me 3 days to finally do what I wanted to and I've never been this happy since my birthday last year. Thank the Web Gods for this, I will forever be in debt. *kneels, bows down and murmurs "I am not worthy"*

TEMPLATE
Her existing template was Quixotic and it looked something like this

 
In turn, I chose The Atlantic because of its simplicity and how the layout was focused on the center which would give way for her photography (the photos are coded in hi-res!). When I've finished coding her nav bar (see above for reference) and I finally presented the finished product to her, she told me that she wanted to have a sidebar for her "about me" and to make the photos smaller. Even though it took me a week or so to fit in another column in a one-column layout and to research the tumblr tag to make the hi-res photos smaller, I must say it really looked better this way.

Recently, she has been blogging about her London trip last year. (side note: I should've been there with her by the way! Darn project deployment!!) She went to the olympics and all that jazz! Do drop by her blog here.

Like what you see? Need a blog/website to be designed/redesigned? Hey guess what? I'm for hire!

It's 2013 and Changes are Abound!

SOOOO long since my last update and this is also a very very late welcome to the new year because we're already halfway through the month but never late than never no?

Can I just say that my first half of January was already amazing? I just really wish this would go on until the end of the year because I have not felt like this for the past....4 years? Right now, I'm really grateful and blessed and happy :) Why you ask? Well....

1. I have finally designed some pretty awesome websites (by design I mean edited existing templates) so I'm learning and designing on my own pace. I'm now considering taking an online course on wordpress because, well why not? I want to learn how to use wordpress as an online shopping site.
2. Booked a flight to Hong Kong (again? why yes) for September 2013. First time Polele won't be able to come for this and it makes me sad :(
3. MY FRIEND GAVE BIRTH TO A VERY VERY HEALTHY BABY GIRL. Her name is Candace Franceska nicknamed "Kandeh" by us because we refuse to call her Cheska. Just no. We'd all rather call her Kandeh.
4. While everybody (at least half of my Facebook and Instagram friends) was partying up at the Sinulog festival, my cousins (and plus ones!) and I have conquered Pinatubo yesterday and I'm now suffering the second worst body pain in my life (first being the free trial at Crossfit. Damn you squats!)!!! But W H O A all that pain is worth it. I may not try hiking ever again but of course I'll probably change my mind because I'm fickle and I'm almost always undecided on many things.

I am not claiming that 2013 will be my year and I'm not really looking forward to this year; what I'll try to do is concentrate on the now. The greatest advantage about this is that I get to clear my head and get to focus on things one day at a time. Aaaaand right now, I want to focus on this blog. I had a talk with myself recently (LOL what?) and we both agreed that there HAS to be something that will keep this blog afloat...

Last year, I realized that I have watched more movies in the theater than any other year. If I had an expense tracker on my phone it would all point to movie tickets and popcorns and I'm quite disappointed that I didn't keep a list of it. So, while I wanted Spaced Out Days to be a travel blog of sorts, I will switch it up and I'll focus more on the the movies I will watch this year! Besides keeping track, I just really want to avoid all "that movie was only shown this year" thoughts (believe me I had A LOT of those moments). More details on a separate post.

Also! Another thing that I'll be doing is related to my web design portfolio. I'm not going to give away any details yet because I believe in the whole jinx thing so you'll just have to wait and see~

How was your first half of January? Let me know and let's share the good vibes to all!! (but if you're already having the worst first half then I hug you!)

Singapore 2012 Random Shots

Literally. I would only take pictures when I was bored so I ended up having these shots... I think this is my attempt to be artsy or something. I really don't know which direction I'm going..

Would you laugh at me if I say that this is part 1? hahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahaha yeah I thought so too.

Singapore 2012 was one for the books. Oh man, I'd really love to go back here :)

Draft: Boat Ride Through The Sky Logo

I sort of (publicly tweeted) that I'm gonna create a logo for Gela because in my head, the banner is gonna be super plain and simple and the only graphic I can only think of placing on it is a logo. (A detailed explanation for why I only chose a logo will be posted when I've finished the banner)

I started doing something like this because whenever I read her blog she gives off this girly-girl vibe and scalloped borders are kind of like that way too (especially when the color is pink, which coincidentally, is her favorite color) plus it somehow reminds me of laces (which is also one of her favorites). Yeah don't ask why.

In the middle of fixing the boat (yeah, I don't like it as much now and the edges are super rough and I need a new shade of pink for the boat), I suddenly started doing monograms from the initials of Boat Ride Through The Sky (BTTS) and had this awesome monogram in my head that involved the letters forming a frickin' boat....I MEAN RIGHT? IT'LL BE SUPER COOL IF I PULLED THAT OFF!

Instead all I had were these:

I might still push through with it because I can't seem to get the B and S right. Maybe I shouldn't limit myself with the triangle no? I must research more on the types of boats! At the end of the week, however, if I'm still not satisfied, I'm dropping the monogram and focus on the boat instead.

In short, I'm almost there. I've also one thing in mind as a replacement for the boat but it's going to be a tedious process since I'm not really familiar with the pen tool.

PS: I freaked out because I forgot to place CLOUDS on the logo. Holy smokes. Her blog is called Boat Ride Through The SKY. And I have a boat floating on...nothing! Geezas.

Clouds Make Me Happy

I've been feeling down lately so I've edited some cloud photos from my recent travels. Sunny weather and clouds make me happy :)

Oh please be good to me, next half of the year. I'm not expecting much and I'm honestly expecting something worse for the days ahead so I'm bracing myself. Hope I'd come out alive, really.

Apologies and Updates

I was looking through my shots from the US Trip and I just realized how lazy I am in taking pictures. I think it's because getting the right shot for my photos would take time so I'd rather just live in the moment than waste my time capturing said moment. Did that make sense? Well, let me just simplify it for you: I always forget that I have a camera with me.

And so, this might very well entail the future of my Summer 2012 posts. I am truly sorry if I have weird, awkward, why are you taking a picture of your face and not the place, shots. Hey,  I didn't say I'm a professional photographer!

So that's now out of the way, I'd just like to tell you some things because I miss blogging:

• I have a new contract with Accenture for 3 months which started last week and so far, it's good. I don't want to jinx my whole experience so I'll just leave it at that.
• Last summer, a batchmate of mine from High School, Gela of Boat Ride Through The Sky, was looking for someone to redesign her blog and I volunteered! YES. FREE.OF.CHARGE. Well, it's not as if I have the right to charge but still. It has been a really really slow progress (changed the design twice already) which is why I still have NOTHING to present to her. Ugh, brain come on, you're better than this!
• Also, I've just discovered dribbble! How come I didn't know about this? I'm still debating if I should sign up as a prospect but I have nothing yet to upload so... that's sad. I should be starting up on some things yes? Any suggestions tho?
• A super duper random conversation while we were having lunch might lead me to the Olympics. Yeah, OLYMPICS. Again, no deets as of now but it involves my friend Polele. There's like the slightest chance that this thing will happen but you know, we'll see how things will go from here.

June is weird. Things are popping out of nowhere- I can't really decide if they're great or not.

Pic super unrelated: I think we're the only couple who doesn't take pictures as much. And I don't mean like we secretly take pictures from our cellphones but we've decided not to publish it because we're too cheesy kinda way because we're not even cheesy in our pictures! (case in point: Picture above) WE REALLY DON'T TAKE PICTURES. This picture is only 1 out of 2 from our lunch date at King Bee.

What does it say about us? I'm curious.

When Things Don't Go According To Plan

Certain decisions in life has made me lazy, uninspired and bitchy. Kinda like this dog. OH wait, this dog isn't as bitchy as I am. Wow my life.

You know, I was in 3rd year HS when I realized what I wanted to do in life: I wanted to be a web designer living in a condominium in Singapore.It was pretty simple, straight to the point and I was pretty damn confident about it....until I actually entered college.

I was surprised that the course I took did NOT involve doing web design. It was basically hardcore programming with a dash of management courses. You can only just imagine what I know- I was only into Photoshop and HTML and CSS and none of that PHP-JSP-.NET things. I was really annoyed by this fact BUT at the same time I wasn't going to let THAT hinder me from getting a diploma I desperately fought for when my parents wanted me to become a Nurse. I just, I had too much pride in me to admit that I was wrong. I WAS HELL WRONG.