I am an optimist at heart, but with a coworker's wallet being stolen, the heat, and all-around tiredness, today feels like a prolonged Monday - even when it is not.
I have noticed that high emotion clouds the mind and senses. Whether it is heat or frustration, sometimes you just need to take a step back and look at what you're doing again. I once read where a writer would look for inspiration for his story from things he had already read; somehow, looking over what he started on in the beginning helped him formulate the end (and all the things in between). I think that this is applicable to almost everything. Whether you are designing or writing content, sometime it's just good to take a step back and look over what you've already done to see where you can improve it, or go further.
I did that today with a generic golf travel accessories website. This morning I wasn't sure where I left off, and had no ideas, so I went into the backend, and started working again. While I didn't do too much to the design, it did help me refocus on what I had already done in order to finish what I had started.
In order to correctly design, it is important that you take a few breaths here and there so that you can think straight. Eating breakfast in the morning, and truly enjoying your breaks allow you to free your mind, and get you in the mood to think straight.
I found that mints help a lot, when my mind is feeling cluttered. I keep a can of mints near me at all times. And when I have a brain fart, I stop thinking and I eat a mint. The mint allows me to step away from the project at hand, so that I can truly think about what I need to do, and how I need to do it.
I have already eaten three mints, just writing this thing.
Oh, coffee helps too. I find; however, that I need a constant supply of it. Otherwise I will crash a couple of hours later.
Check out one of my mint-induced websites I made earlier today. It is a health insurance company based in Maine.
Working on compatibility issues can really drive you crazy why something sometimes is totally off in IE,Safari,Firefox its a challenge to get the same results on all 3. So I'm working alot with hidden css Ie codes that display the same results on all browsers. See the solutions to some of the most common HTML/CSS bugs in Internet Explorer, covers margins appearing larger, minimum height, and tag fixes try http://www.wipeout44.com/brain_food/css_ie_bug_fixes.asp
Finished a couple news and I'm waiting on a pinkie that was hosted on dreamhost so it will probably be ready to go first thing in the morning. Matching client sites has raised my css skills, but photoshop is falling as we are just reusing what the original site already have. Its a good change to the norm and in this business it seems change is always around the corner.
Switching all the sites to mirror the clients (horrible websites) is very interesting and opens up a whole lot more in terms of design but just doesn't give u that satisfaction at the end of the day. But hey the client is always right. Learning how to position images and copy text styles does kind of present a puzzle so its been pretty interesting.
...that I could be well protected in every aspect of life with today's businesses that I wrote for.
First up was State Farm where you can get quality affordable auto insurance and homeowners insurance in San Bernardino California...
Next was Parker Security which covers Dallas security systems. For some reason, the lean toward Biometrics in Dallas security systems is interesting...very sci-fi. I just find that cool.
Worked on a site about insurance of course but it focused on the North Carolina area. Just reminded me of an opportunity I once had to move to the Outer Banks...I wonder how much fun that would have been. Other than for the tropical storms, I think it might have been a lot of fun.
But if you live near there, try Brad Sizemore Insurance as a possibility for coverage. They offer free auto insurance online quotes in North Carolina and with cash being tight all around the country, who knows, maybe they could save you some cash!
bradsizemoreinsurance.com
In an effort to help with link building for our clients, each of us has just gotten started by making our own accounts with del.icio.us which is a huge record of links between users all over the world. This way, after work is completed on a site, you can place a link into it and add in some relevant content about it as a description or in the notes. Or even add some tags to your link.
I'm going to be adding yet more links to mine as it is still small and newly created, but some of which will be for a site I had added a bit of content to for a Christian mortgage company. With SEO being an ongoing process, you need to keep on top of newer developments such as link building.
Although the default timberlake template is....well...unattractive to say the least, it certainly can be customized to your little hearts content. As Darrell pointed out you can add some interesting techniques to make the headers stand out a bit more. Although I tend to stray away from the negative margin technique simply because of the fact that I.E doesn't act too kindly with them.
With my latest account for The Office Shop Inc I incorporated a similar yet different technique. Rather then creating a larger header and using the negative margin to make it line up, I simply created a standard header in photoshop and used the "pop off images" partially in the background. The background itself is wide enough to have a 777px blank white spot in the middle with the images on the sides of this. View the background image of the header to see exactly what I'm talking about. Then you center the background with "background-position:top center;".
There is definitely no one right way to incorporate any of these techniques and each of you will find your own personal preference on how to apply each.
I had set aside this tool for long enough that I had completely forgotten how to use it.
I love making cartoon images - they seem so happy and bright, and can be the perfect thing for a header image. Personally, I prefer to draw them by hand, but sometimes it's best to just use Photoshop to do the dirt work for it. Using just a simple circle tool, I created a silly dog animation for this pet supply website, and then did a few circles on the background.
Geometric shapes add in just that special little touch to it. They are so plain and yet so pretty at the same time.
