Had to whip together a simple banner ad for a program that I designed a while back (Will take photos of the postcard part when I get my act together). I am re-doing my folio site at the moment. If anyone cares to check it out and tell me if anything is amiss with the image rollovers etc – I’m warping a folio blog theme for my evil purposes to vaguely match this one, having trouble making some of it behave, as there a quite a few little clever php tricks going on. And I do design not hardcore programming even if I have picked up bits and pieces along the way. It’s dummy data/stuff there at the minute.

On a slightly related note I just finished a website today www.samoasunsetview.com I wish everyone used macs, things always look 80 times more brilliant on a mac, cleaner web fonts and I’m far too used to it now.

From the Couch has some excellent little tutorials.

I particularly like this one on moodboards, it’s pretty much common sense but a good reminder and nice to see a particular working style.

…the only thing I don’t like about their site is their logo, it unfortunately kinda looks like warped boobs. :\

(Another little fun thing is this copy/paste site where you click on the character to auto copy it! Handy! ☂ How else do you get umbrellas!)

Today – finally – is the launch of the new MECS brand. Initially the project was part uni assignment that I coupled with a pitch and managed to get the job! For the last little while I have been working on their signage and stationery and as soon as I get given copies, and the signs are put up – I will share some photos. Note to the locals: I’m not responsible for the car stickers or the open day signs… just the other stuff.

This is the logo, by way of explanation it is:

• An abstraction of three people in conversation, this ties in with both a community focus and home-school partnership.
• A tree, representative of growth and suitable for the Yarra Ranges environment.
• Pathways, indicative of MECS providing direction and leading students through their time at school.
• And to a lesser extent the addition of five colours is reflective of 5 values (which I cannot pull off the top of my head at this very moment).

The logo has undergone several transitions from where I left it and a huge number from where it started. The one submitted to uni used an entirely different typeface and was one-colour, the placement was also closer to the secondary vertical version. The typeface in use now is Fontin it suits the school better than the previous one, it also makes my life easier because it is of superior quality and can be used more widely.

Secondary vertical version:

This morning the school had a brief morning tea to officially kick off the branding. I am really happy with the outcome, it feels right for the school. Here’s to hoping I get to dig my hands into their website in the next few months. In the mean-time I have picked up another job doing a website revamp for a pharmacy.

I am not sure if I have talked much about concluding my time working at Ergo Consulting. I am in the handover process and will be finished by the end of March it seems the timing is really good. I’ve loved working with Ergo and learnt a huge amount while I’ve been there – not only in administration/design but about the business world. They are exceptional people to work for. This year however, I need to focus on uni a bit more and want to keep doing this freelancing stuff to get some experience under my belt.

On the design note, I have also just finished the Business Sustainability Round Table website (Work through Ergo) – the focus of all my IE complaints via Twitter of late. The fun area is in the member section (Which you aren’t allowed to go to!) and I got to dig around and make useful various plugins and php. I also created the BSRT logo – the pyramid is to do with some business model/a leaf shape for sustainability, the ’round’ bit is quite literal for ’round table’, you could say it is globe’ish too, but that could be taking things a bit far. A brochure is currently getting printed, photos to come of that too.

There is quite a reasonable and comprehensively linked post over on Design Tech about builiding and customising WordPress Themes.

The bain of my existence at the moment is degbugging WP Themes for the various ugly versons of Internet Explorer. I have been working on a site for work as well as my own personal theme and have consquently learnt a lot in the past little while. The work related one is much more CMS (Content Management System ie. normal website) based and so it’s learning how to get plugins to work effectively for you, using php and wordpress codex to modify what the loop outputs and creating all kinds of member protected areas etc. A marvellous exercise really because all the things it has forced me to investigate. I will share the link once I get it running smoothly in IE. However,

An honorary mention must be given to:

WordPress Download Monitor Plugin – Very useful for cutting out a step and keeping things somewhat organised for those uploading pdf’s (and other) that members can access. It has some limits – in that I can’t get the formatting to work when it populates a list via category – but it’s not half bad. WordPress still lacks a really good free document management plugin.

*Wordpress Download Manager – Seems to a be a far better option than Download Monitor. Organise, upload and output categorical (or otherwise) lists of pdfs and other such uploads. Formatting works a charm. I cannot at this stage get the search to work for me, but one thing at a time.

How to use WordPress as a Member Directory – This article got me both started and then back on the right track. I tried a couple of things but this was the closest and that which worked best. Again there are a few things – that if I knew php better I would alter and it’s a bit of a pain that it leans on two plugins and there isn’t just something that will do it all for you, but hey there’s some scope for some handy programmer out there.

Smashing Magazine – of which I am quite a fan, has recently written a ripper post on: Clear and Effective Communication in Web Design. It was interesting enough that I let my toast go cold. So if the web is your arena or your playground, then do yourself a favour and get over there.

What I love about Smashing articles is the wealth of information that comes with each post. They, (Un-surprisingly really) use the web as it was intended to be used – to network information. This is certainly something I could do better on this blog. However as it’s purpose waxes and wanes so must it’s content. After all, All Said & Done began as a personal blog and needs in many ways to remain the same.

On that note, my new blog theme is almost operational, although I’m still in the process of dreaming up all the extra fun things I can implement before I go live. That and I am also intending to write up a second theme for www.becmatheson.com to match – despite serving very different purposes, and I as yet haven’t decided if they should come independent of eachother… that and I’ve just read an article that’s gotten me thinking.

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