A snapshot of youth
25 August 2007, 8:15 pm. 17 Comments. Filed under Art, Design.
I started three designs and got stuck. Seems like I've lost my old sense of "artistic" designs and started joining in the trend of the whole "clean and simple" blog designs. Don't know whether that's a good thing or not but I'm not very good with it either. Official design block and driving me nuts. Any inspiration ideas? Here's me on the verge of scraping my latest design.
So in place of my design block, I opened up a new canvas in Photoshop and started more doodling in reminiscence of my high school days last year. I welcome my gang: Meep/Eeep from me, BoBo from Jennifer (I fail to draw the evolved version) and the r3t4Rd3d Momo from Mona.
I remember how we'd very naively sing It's a Small World to my lyrics and the junior girls would look at us with unanimous weird expressions since they had always thought we were "mature" senior students.
The bulk of our comic strips were evil acts against Mo because well... It's a pretty... r3t4Rd3d-looking goldfish.
And I just procrastinated more from studying. But today's the first day of my two-week holidays, give me a break. Now I need design inspiration, inspiration, inspiration... They're looking so plain and boring and doodling makes me blanker. Grrr.
Web design opinions and new semester
15 July 2007, 10:21 pm. 15 Comments. Filed under Design, School.
The two topics in my title don't really blend well together but I prefer this than making two short and separate posts one after the other on the same night. So here goes...
I did realise my previous post was highly subjective and I received disagreements especially for my example of an "ugly website design". But as a personal website, I believe I can publicly post my personal opinions and since they made their websites public, it's also open to public scrutiny. Jem's article Unrequested Reviews backs up my point of view—I think. Of course, anyone can disagree with my opinions too. And yes, Hydora, right after I published my previous post I was missing my good old days writing full web page reviews on my site and Captious Pedants. 
For those who are actually "fans" of web design, which undoubtedly includes the owner of the Web Design Fanlisting, should pay more attention to web design tips and trends on the net, right? Well, I have some of these web design mistakes around my site too and I'm trying to take these advices in.
- 5 Things You Should Avoid
- 25 Ways To Improve Your Site Today
- 43 Web Design Mistakes You Should Avoid
- Simple Ways To Help Your Design Suck Less
To steer the topic away from web design, I see the time is currently 10:02 pm. I need to start getting used to going to bed at this time because I scheduled myself three 8 am classes a week this semester, which starts tomorrow. It means waking up at 6 am to take the bus at 6:30; but since dad is being surprisingly nice right now he'll drive me to school tomorrow. I get to sleep an extra 30 minutes but it's still an ouch.
Exam results from last semester weren't too good, but I definitely did better than I initially thought. It's actually quite satisfactory knowing that this result would get me into Law School next year and that I have comparatively easier papers this coming semester. It just means that I should be able to lift up my overall GPA higher by the end of the year but I still can't let my guards down. Good luck to me. Yeah.
By the way, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had nice movie effects but the director's skills in plot-cutting still hasn't improved.
Return of Appassionato
25 June 2007, 11:24 pm. 25 Comments. Filed under Design, Holiday, Site-related.
Big change? I would say so. Appassionato is now working as my personal site including my blog, profile, personal portfolio and other website resources (the old designs, tutorials, etc.). Sorry to disappoint you, but all the more "interesting" sections to the site have not been completed yet. 
However, feel free to explore the sections that are currently up and I shall sit back and wait for any feedback or error reports.
So this semester has ended 11 days ago. I'm still anticipating the exam results but I feel accomplished that I've done quite a lot on this site within these 11 days. The entire blog/commenting system including the administration panel required a considerate amount of PHP coding that was out of my realm of knowledge prior to this project and there! I've done it. 
(Yes, I'm playing with the smileys. Thanks to Rikkye for them!)
And to my dear blog friends, please change your links to my blog! 
Constructive criticism regarding the design and content is, as always, welcome and appreciated. And now, I shall take a rest and think about what to do for the upcoming content. Ladies and gentlemen, I leave it up to you—for now.
Update: Has anyone else ever thought that this design reminds them of Cadbury chocolate? I'm sure this purple is their licenced trademark colour and the "wood planks" look too fake, they look more like chocolate planks to me. My friend asked if I was doing advertising for Cadbury. 
