Stumbled upon the website of Paul Burgess while looking for inspiration for a project I’m working on. He’s a web designer from England who did Miss Aniela’s web site, among many others. I have become an instant fan of his work. His sites are visually pleasing (dare I say arresting), yet they are elegant, functional, and free of pointless window dressing. Unlike so much of the stuff you see on Smashing Magazine and places like that.
Most of his sites seem to be WordPress based, and he talks about making it easy for clients to update or add their own content, which is exactly how I imagine doing it — once I learn how. So much I need to learn both technically and artistically to be able to work in that way. But it is exciting to find a model or source of inspiration to keep me on track in my dreams of web design excellence.
Makes me think I ought to start studying WordPress right away and perhaps table the Javascript book I’ve been reading. I do totally want to learn Javascript, but it may not be quite as much on the critical path to where I’m going. I can probably just grab some free code if I need any Javascript enhancements, at least for the time being. But I really feel that learning WordPress, and designing with WordPress would open up a lot of possibilities.
Filed under: Uncategorized by danielo
No Comments »
I didn’t do any web work Friday or Saturday, so I’m trying to put in a triple session today. I came up with a new concept for cousin Terry’s site. The first one I came up with was full of pink flowers that formed a kind of transparent background for the text. It was just something that popped into my head, but I didn’t get any “Iloved it’s” back, so either it wasn’t what she was looking for, or she just hasn’t had time to think about it.
Latest web design for my cousin
The new concept is kind of retro, newspaper style. I kind of like it, and may use it for myself it she doesn’t want it.
After dinner I hope to spend time studying Javascript and Inkscape. Inkscape really has a lot of potential – I think it would add a lot to my toolkit to be good at vector graphics – it has so many applications for logos, illustrations, decorative elements and more. There is so much to learn about the craft of web design.
Filed under: Uncategorized by danielo
No Comments »
Well, the sickening era of W is finally over, though it feels as if we’ve dug ourselves into such a deep hole that getting out will be very, very difficult. But not impossible. I am enough of an optimist to believe in that.
Anyway, for today’s effort I think I’ll make a cup of tea and study some Javascript. I feel like I ought work on a new web page design, or do some biz development, but that seems too challenging. I’m feeling a little fried after a busy weekend and a day at the office. So a ’scripting I go!
Cheers!
Filed under: Uncategorized by danielo
No Comments »
I had previously tagged this useful looking article with some basic steps to take on a new WordPress install. So I did a couple of the easist/most obvious to get myself going here.
- I added an RSS feed to the sidebar
- I changed the default admin user
- I set the permalink style
- I got a WordPress api key and enabled akismet spam filtering
I did not change the default theme. Maybe I’ll do that next. Of course I’d really like to design my own, but it doesn’t seem to be a priority at this moment.
Filed under: Uncategorized by danielo
No Comments »
Decided to read a book about Javascript. It seems like a pretty basic part of the web developer’s toolkit, if only for various cosmetic fix ups and so forth. Obviously I will probably discover tons of cool things I can do with javascript once I get going.
I do keep seeing zillions of references to libraries like jquery for adding a host of cool or useful features to your site like galleries, menus, cool visuals, etc.
Anyway, I’m reading Learning JavaScript, 2nd Edition by Shelley Powers. I am reading it for free online on Safari Bookshelf, a benefit of my Santa Cruz public library membership. It rocks.
Filed under: Uncategorized by danielo
No Comments »
Hey. I decided to start keeping my web development notes here in my WordPress blog. It’s as good a place as any, and it will give me an excuse to start learning my way around WP.
Tonight I am thinking about the maintenance aspects of my web developer business. generating traffic reports. Thinking about SEO and those kinds of things. I think I will start by running stats on my three sites for the month of December. After that maybe I’ll jot down some notes about SEO if I have time.
SEO link suggested by Robert Scoble https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Pretty fascinating tool for coming up with key words to populate your meta data or whatever.
Okey dokey – til next time 
Filed under: Uncategorized by danielo
No Comments »
So, this is going to be my WordPress blog. I thought that I should learn a little about WP, since it is such a hugely popular CMS.
So far I have just installed the product, and now, obviously, I am making my first post. Perhaps I will post generally on the topic of learning WordPress itself? Or perhaps I will mix in my daily musings and whatever.
I guess we’ll just see what develops.
Filed under: Uncategorized by danielo
1 Comment »