Here is my latest work… Connersvine…

The Connersvine theme is by far my favorite one, and for some reason I was able to wizz through it. I think design only took about a week and a half, and coding took about another week. I love it when this happens, work seems to be a breeze and it’s actually fun to work all hours of the day and night.

Here are a few things I like about the design…

• Real photos to work with… Cool background image.
• Fixed header Link section.
• Use of png’s with Opacity.
• Comments section. (nothing that special, just different than what I’ve done so far)
• Posting section has some new ideas I’ve been wanting to do.

All in all I’m really satisfied with their new design. Check it, click on stuff and let me know what you think. (yes, I know there is nothing in the news section)

Over the last couple of weeks I began to reach for the top shelf. I’ve been spending the costly price on the Web and I’ve been building with high priced images. Ode to the PNG image format. What is it, it’s a damn expensive image, thats what it is. (a bitmap image format that employs lossless data compression) Which means it holds its value when you open it change it and re-save it, unlike a jpg.

Perhaps this is gibberish, but Im pretty sure most everyone out there knows what happens when you use a cheap jpg image. They look like crap and you wish you wouldn’t have used it after you’re done posting it.

Anyway, the point is, A good png image with a transparent background can be dropped on top of any color or image and will work great. (that is if you built your image right) Is it worth the price? Sometimes when you really need it, yes. I could spend 5kb on a gif or i could spend 40kb on a png. I figure as long as your layout page load is under 500kb it’ll be ok.

This is the age of high speed internet. If you dont have it than you’re not surfing, you’re swimming.

I would just like to announce that our Original Poster Boys ‘MercyMe‘ have had another revision of the their ever expanding Blog. This is one of my favorite parts of my job. Also, one of my favorite parts of the way web2.0 and blogging has redefined the way we view the web and its content.

With ever changing content and updates that roll in about every week, it seems like we are always having to find another little space to put a new item. With blogging type content you had better be prepared to add, add and add some more. I mean it when I say, ‘You had better be prepared‘. If you’re not, the next thing you know you’ll have a completely jumbled site with crap all over it. Your viewers wont be able to focus on much and you end up with people that only read the posts. At that point all your extras go to waste.

I think we accomplished most of our Goals with the latest revision of MercyMe. We’ve cleaned up the navigation and simplified it by putting it in a standard horizontal arangment. We took all the extras and condenced them into images that we placed in a single sidebar. There’s no explination need for what they have available, if you cant figure out what you’re clicking on than you may need glasses.

Bart has recently start Twitter, so we brought that in for you to check out. The MercyMe web crew, who is awesome by the way, has had a pretty killer audio player on the Official Website for a while now so we decided to add that for you’re listening pleasure. The Blog Roll seems to have expanded to a double column. (I swear those blog rolls are like rabbits) And finally we added a little section at the bottom for those who are curious about what has been going on in the past or just looking for something specific.

I hope you all enjoy what you see and if you have any suggestions or you just like to say nice things, I’m all ears.

Happy Blogging,

If you’re into Graphic Design, Web Design or just about any kind of design, this might be for you. Its probably one of the only magazines i will actually buy. Next time you’re in Borders and you’re just browsing the mag rack, if you see this, flip through it.

Over the last month Ive really put out an extra effort to going out and looking through alot of blogrolls. I’ve also gone to certain blogs where i know they get alot of comments and from there ive clicked on every commenter to go see what they look like.

What does your blog look like? Is it like mine? Plane, lots of links and a narrow readers column, 3 easily noticeable facts of my Theme. Or maybe i pay to much attention. I dont think people really care too much about how extremely cool your blog looks. Out here it seems to be all about content and community. With that in mind, What would one blog say to the other?

Chick blog - “i really like you and i want to go out for pizza sometime but I just cant seem to read you. whats the deal, dont you care?”

dude blog - “what do you mean, i post all the time, your on my stats i put you in my blog roll. arnt we going out for pizza tomorrow?”

Maybe a little over the top. But!!! If you had a choice when you started blogging, if you had more control over the look. would you have changed it? Maybe, Maybe not…

Point here is I think most people would rather read a simple empty blog and have content be the key. But its not that simple. Blogs are so easily added to that they quickly become cluttered with stickers and links and disorganized content. Im becoming a prime example.

Whats your order of importance on a blog? please expand on these topics if you can think of more.

Mine is: Content, Community, Design, Function

Over the last month i built about 10 to 15 different themes, I’ve trashed about 5 of them and had to rebuild about 5 others. There are only about 3 or 4 that are actually being used.

Layout, Color, Form over Function, Ledgability, User Friendly, and most important does the owner actually like it?

Ive come to realize that just about everything has been done already. Rounded corners, dropshadow, lines, fonts, colors; you get the point. But, design in general has to be pleasing, not just to the owner but their audience as-well. Have you ever gone to a blog that you really like to read, but by the time your done reading you dont feel like going out and reading another one. The type is so small that you almost cant tell whats going on. Sure you can always inlarge the text through the browser but you shouldnt have too.

Over the next month im going to try and get some of my Themes submitted to WordPress. Hopefully that will get them into the themes on wordpress.com. We’ll see.

If you have any suggestions on what you would like in a theme let me know.