Design

I just completed the latest illustration/design project for a client, BloomSpot.

Read more about it at services/portfolio page. The client is yet to take the site live. Hence it will be a while before this logo is actually used in the website.

After taking the plunge to design a new Drupal theme, I decided to clean up and start tweaking the theme a little bit.

You will note that now it has a good grid like setup, along with the added extra column on the side. Earlier layout allowed for only region. This one has a total of six different regions - he two sidebars, one region on top of it and three footer regions. I would not have thought of venturing out to such a complex structure had it not been for the Blueprint CSS framework. It reduced a lot of time I would have spent on tweaking the layout before even attempting to style.

The layout is currently tested in Firefox and Opera - both from Linux. I will be doing the testing on IE soon - meanwhile, if you find any layout aberrations, do drop in a comment.

Also, you will see that, current entries have nice little calendar icons, that is created fully using CSS - I took quite a bit of direction from . There are no images. Infact, as of this moment, apart from the feed icon, and the logo, there are no images. (It will be changing shortly).

So keep expecting changes.

Finally, I got to the point where I upgraded to Drupal 6 for this website.

The regular readers might have noticed that there is a starking change in the theme. Earlier, I was using another theme, Alek 2.0. A beautiful theme, but it seemed to have problems with Drupal 6.x - or atleast with the set of modules I had installed.

Hence, I thought I would do "a quick and simple" theme myself. The result is here, and it can be called to be in a beta state - not sure if I would release it or not because the CSS is a bit messy. It turned out to be not that simple.

There are a few things I will be fixing in terms of styling the links (you can see a lot of blue and purple sprinkled around currently) which would all go monotone and be harmonized. Drupal, striving towards flexibility gives a lot of class attributes to the numerous elements and I am yet to have a full understanding of the theming architecture to do it efficiently.

I still remain impressed though - the theme as it is currently requires only one style CSS file, one tempate file (page.tpl.php) and the .info file.

Expect few more changes around here.

Let me try to say it in as few words as possible. Actually few links:

Who did UI rip-off? Was it Apple or Microsoft?

How about both?

Need a bit of history in technology?

I ran across this set of great dark theme mockups for Intrepid Ibex. That is the next version of Ubuntu after Hardy Heron for those unacquainted with the Ubunutu release cycles.

Interpid Ibex Mockup Part 1 by ~willwill100 on deviantART

Interpid Ibex Mockup Part 2 by ~willwill100 on deviantART

Interpid Ibex Mockup Part 3 by ~willwill100 on deviantART

Dark theme on a Linux OS, that too with all the 'shiny' stuff has always been scorned upon.

Looking at these mockups, I just hope one of these at least come in on the standard distribution if not as default theme.

Source: Ubuntu Wiki - Artwork/Incoming/Interpid

When you are developing some system, you will come across a module or a task that takes longer to process than you would want. Or you might be in a situation where you may need to reduce the time it takes for performing a task.

After an amount of standard optimizations, there comes a point where you can push it no more. That is when, you can start thinking about what is called pre-processing. This is not something radically new. It is used by search algorithms, where you create some indexes or caches before hand - way before the actual search is performed. Databases provide the ability to create indexes that reduces the response time of a SELECT at a later point in time.

A similar design approach, in terms of working out a given module would invovle quite similar steps, no matter what it does.

1. Identify the different subtasks, or smaller chunks of the process. Most of the cases, a particular task would have several sub-tasks, or phases in which the process takes place. Recognize each phase of the logic.
2. Identify which of them is time critical, and which are not. Some of the tasks would be time critical in the sense that, it has to be done right at that point in time. Some other sub-tasks, could actually be performed before hand.
3. Identify if there are any additional tasks that can be performed before hand, that would increase the speed of the task in question.
4. Perform the non time critical sub-tasks, or phases before hand. Thus, when the actual task is performed, it will perform better and give a better turn around time.

Note that this approach may not be applicable in all cases. Also, such approach would increase the complexity of the code - the logic to perform one task is basically spread across the timeline, and analyzing such a setup requires a little more effort. There would be other impacts like increased use of space/memory.

I almost missed Martin's post on community building:

• Building A Community - Creating a logo
• Building A Community - Starting the design process

I suspect he will be going into an indepth design process for a forum, and there will be more articles to come.

Anyway, for CGPainting.com, I did the logo design.

After creating some rough sketches, I got down to the actual logo design using Inkscape. The brush like shape, and the earthly brown color gave the logo a traditional medium feel to it, and the geometric shapes for composing the 'CG' gave a digital vibe to it.

Martin, as I mentioned, goes into indepth detail of getting a custom logo designed. Having not much of a commercial outlook for CGPainting.com, I did not find it necessary to do so. I did not even want to stick to the default (boring) vBulletin skin, and thus I browsed through the vBulletin.org's gallery of themes, and settled for Blue Darkness.

I might invest some money at a future date depending on how the community picks up. Else, I do not find it necessary to invest into the design, when there are quite a lot of custom but free themes available.

Today I just got my first Moleskine® sketchbook.

Moleskine is the legendary notebook used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin.This trusty, pocket-size travel companion held sketches, notes, stories and ideas before they were turned into famous images or pages of beloved books.

:) Not sure how "legendary" my works would be, but I got pushed over the edge after reading Thord's entry about "analog writing".

As much as my other blogs and this one records my stray thoughs, I am not online most of the time. And the ideas just never stop popping into my head, and even if I do not wish, I do forget to get those ideas into writing somewhere.

I have been intending on getting a notebook for myself so that I write notes and draw sketches whenever I feel like and am not restricted to times when I have access to a computer or internet.

I got the Moleskine® sketchbook one because I would be doodling a lot as much as I would be writing, and the heavy acid-free 80 pages book seems to have good "tooth" for sketching.

Now, I just need to see for how long I can stick to the routine of recording the ideas as they pop into my head, and also how I can catalog it and use it in my works. 

Photography: Arun Sasidharan © 2007

The signal to noise ratio of blogosphere regarding inspiration and deadlines seem to have gone up.

About a week back, Veerle talked about how deadlines could kill inspiration:

If the designer is rushed, quality work can be compromised.

In a response to this, Andy wrote about the Tao of Deadlines, where he takes a rather opposing view. And in my opinion, as Veerle says, it is a rather "black and white" view of the situation.

Deadlines does effect your inspiraiton. It basically is in how you take a look at it. It can deter, and it can help your inspiration too. This is something that I learned during a week of personal challenge where I was racing against a deadline every day.

Having a deadline looming on your head, sometimes is all you need to get ideas. You get creative ideas to get ideas and that is a good thing...

Dealing with CSS was always tricky for me, but I could manage for most of the things.  But if it were for styling FORMs, then I would go nuts.

Seems like there is a good article at SitePoint.

Fancy Form Design Using CSS

I guess I will be going through it.