Published February 18, 2009 by

Ampersand

ampersandI am in two minds about the ampersand, they are incredibly beautiful, curvy, interesting, and can feature alone, but on the other hand, they are a quite a lazy character. They rip the letters A N D off and they are often used at inappropriate moments. It’s the & of the headline and not the and of the story.

If you don’t take the metaphor too far, you could say that this blog has progressed (or degressed) from:

All Said and Done

to

All Said & Done

The blog might have grown up or at very least aged, but it has certainly gotten more lazy, it is less about the story. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but more reflective of how All Said & Done fits into my life as opposed to a few years ago.

Aside:

I do quite like the ampersand. And the one sitting on my desk makes me quite happy as it really does serve no purpose whatsoever.

This guy is even mesmerised by them.

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& All Said & Done ampersand Blogging Design

Published February 6, 2009 by

Effective Communication and the Web

grantham_toast_in_the_sky_jSmashing 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.

image source

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Published December 4, 2008 by

Comment Day

The Smulo man is getting us out there commenting, and although I am a day late (by date) I am matching my Northern Hemisphere bloggers… not intentionally – I kind of forgot after I committed.

I am appalling at commenting on other blogs despite reading (literally) hundreds.

I have commented on these blogs – some of which I have made myself known already, some which I had been simply a lurker, it is a weak effort but a start:

Wonderful Awful Things – Rain

Sew Green – Green Giving for Kids

No Accounting for Taste – Letterpress & Gocco Cards

CasaSugar – DIY paper covered pens (I don’t think this is a true blog… but I like the idea)

Smulo Space – Blog Comment Day Tomorrow – okay this doesn’t count either but for now it will have to be.

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Blogging comments ideas

Published July 1, 2008 by

Blog theme from scratch

24959x-086aI have this shocking habit of going and starting interesting things at very inconvenient times.

The other evening I began work on a new blog design/site design, in order to incorporate or in more realistic terms, mash the whole lot into something cohesive.

It currently looks very, very different to anything I have had up before. Yes I like it.

But wait! There’s a catch, at the moment my pretty little design sits in all it’s html and css glory and I have this ugly obsession with this marvellous WordPress thing. So until I figure out how to make it all work as a blog (and when I do, I can squash the world between two pinkies whenever I like, because this will give me great power, truly it’s exciting!) please sit tight.

I have to go overseas first, finish and improve a certain photographer’s website, hope and pray that my ‘design contact’ calls me some time that’s more convenient and wait for the sordid remains of my university marks for the semester – which could at worst throw me into a pit of despair and I mightn’t show my face for months.

Meanwhile, any resources you surely-able technologically minded people have in relation to scrubbing up a wordpress theme FROM SCRATCH would be greatly appreciated. I do have some idea what I’m doing but anything helps.

*Apologies for the boring title, this is my ploy to lure useful people from the depths of the internet. Alternatively I would’ve gone for something more like, “We’d change with the season, if it didn’t take so much work”. And that would just be silliness going beyond reason.

**There is a clue here. Unless I change my mind.

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Blogging Design I my how exciting prettifying is not a word

Published February 11, 2008 by

Cheese

I’m still giggling (and I don’t giggle too often) at the title of her blog,

Poets have been curiously silent on the subject of cheese

My little sister Emily has finally joined the bandwagon my sisters tried, although I haven’t seen movement there in quite a while.

The post is classic Emily. I’m pretty curious to see where it goes.

I’m hoping that in trying to blog some of my thoughts or my everyday happenings then maybe just maybe I’ll be motivated to think and ponder things more than I normally would. Normally whenever I begin to ponder something it doesn’t last very long…most particularly because I kinda have a short attention span when it comes to some things…and I tend to be easily distracted. However if I blog about some stuff (descriptive I know!) then I actually have to think enough to get it into a form in which people can read…and hopefully understand and the extra bonus on this is, if I have it written down…my slightly dodgy memory won’t be a problem.

So Em, here’s to blogging through winter and beyond. (And if you need any help with wordpress do ask)

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