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!)