This is a phrase I seem to use more often than not. They say that time flies fast when we are having fun. I suppose that still applies to my "work" of a web and graphic artist. The real work for me is just getting myself started on modifying this theme amidst much change which has happened, both in the Wordpress world and in the world of my home office.
About 60% of my SHM theme was complete before Wordpress 3 released just a few weeks ago. Heck, I even manage to get the hang of jQuery with a few of my jQuery-savvy friends online. It truly is becoming the "write less, do more" solution for me. I see much potential for future projects. Overall its going to be useful for any site that might need content manageable beyond simple pages and blogs. It is true that Wordpress 3 does have new content types that can be added via functions.php but it still cant replace good ol' PodsCMS. I found this video quite useful in getting an idea of the direction that Matt Mullenweg wants to take his creation.
This past week, one of my young laptop hard drives gave out. Just 6 months old, the thing already served me an IO error. With a Linux operating system, the headache was not as great since I didn't need to take out 3 million software CDs to reinstall things on the new drive. My only shortcoming is that the copy of Maya that I have is not compatible with a 64-bit OS so I had to do a bit of finagling on it.
Overall, all is well. In the end, it was a nice reset to get me back on track. Before the crash, I was too caught up in designing The Perfect Checklist for an ever-changing CMS like Wordpress is. It I figured if I could just get an idea of all the Default CSS and CSS that should be included in any Wordpress Template, than I could streamline the process with use of a checklist. While this was written for the version 2.9.2 days, I do like DigWP's Default CSS Checklist that they made. It sort of was helpful but Im still finding myself wanting to start fresh with Thelonious serving as an example.
I still have yet to touch the widgetized sections of my site. One advantage of a pro-bono project is that (at least, usually) no deadline exists. Its about creation "when you can". Most of my pro-bono clients are attracted to me not only out of the idea of getting free work, but because I have a perchance for learning new things if faced with needing to do something a different way than what I have been in the past.
Showing posts with label design methods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design methods. Show all posts
The House that Mary Built
While I sit in a holding pattern on getting a portfolio site up (I need to spend money to make money but I sure dont have much of it right now), I decided to create a blog seperate from my sordid and silly personal life. Maybe I am just addicted to blogging, I dont know.
One thing I do know is that I finally want to do some better documentation of skills I acquire as well as what I learn about my own methods of thinking and how I go about processes. Take last night's Drupal meeting.
We talked about alot of things. While I picked up some new things about Taxonomy, Creating Content Types and the significance of Image Cache modules, I also came home with a better understanding of how I view the overall design and development of a website.
Being a designer with at least a bit of versatility, I find myself equating a website to a house. In a traditional website, the navigation system would be like the house's blueprints. Add walls to the house with Layout. The lighting and plumbing would probably be things like functional code such as Javascript or PHP which add certain functions such as echoing a statement or conditionals. When it comes to my specialty of the look and feel, that would probably be the landscaping round the building, the house paint job and interior decorations such as wallpaper and those cute checkered kitchen floors.
For Wordpress and Drupal, its pretty much the same thing, except my design is more or less called Templates or Themes. CSS is still used but the theming/template method just a slightly different animal in the implentation of things.
Honestly I never really explained it out like that. However all the questions floating around that people at the meeting were asking me about realy brought me to put things into an analogy such as this. For that Im thankful. High Desert Drupal crew really knows alot of stuff and they arent too gunshy about dealing with someone as new to things as me.
One thing I do know is that I finally want to do some better documentation of skills I acquire as well as what I learn about my own methods of thinking and how I go about processes. Take last night's Drupal meeting.
We talked about alot of things. While I picked up some new things about Taxonomy, Creating Content Types and the significance of Image Cache modules, I also came home with a better understanding of how I view the overall design and development of a website.
Being a designer with at least a bit of versatility, I find myself equating a website to a house. In a traditional website, the navigation system would be like the house's blueprints. Add walls to the house with Layout. The lighting and plumbing would probably be things like functional code such as Javascript or PHP which add certain functions such as echoing a statement or conditionals. When it comes to my specialty of the look and feel, that would probably be the landscaping round the building, the house paint job and interior decorations such as wallpaper and those cute checkered kitchen floors.
For Wordpress and Drupal, its pretty much the same thing, except my design is more or less called Templates or Themes. CSS is still used but the theming/template method just a slightly different animal in the implentation of things.
Honestly I never really explained it out like that. However all the questions floating around that people at the meeting were asking me about realy brought me to put things into an analogy such as this. For that Im thankful. High Desert Drupal crew really knows alot of stuff and they arent too gunshy about dealing with someone as new to things as me.
