Spring officially started yesterday and as you can see, Sunshined.org is looking very ‘in-season’. (Just a note that the ‘archives’, ‘content’, and ‘links’ pages are still undergoing severe reconstruction since I have to organize and re-code everything.)

Every time I make a new layout, I always try to make each version unique from the previous. I do this to give it some variety and to challenge myself. Unlike previous versions, this one has a very dark color palette and has an entirely different structure. The header takes up a larger amount of space, the date of the blog entry is in the sidebar and a secondary footer was added to hold my Flickr pictures and other info. Finishing this took me about three months in total and it wasn’t easy.

My original plan was to make a clean layout with a very light color palette consisting of mainly yellow, white and purple. In the image below, you can see how different my original idea was from the final outcome of the design.

I made the flower lineart by taking a photograph of a flower that I found in my hard drive and tracing it using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. I used the same process when making the twitter bird on the sidebar. It was the first time I ever used Adobe Illustrator to make a layout, so at first, I had to find some tutorials to become more familiar with the program.

Fonts were a big part of the design process. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and try out fonts that weren’t the usual Verdana, Arial or Tamoha. So, for displaying ‘Sunshined.org’, I used Museo which I thought was a very modern-looking font. The body font is Trebuchet MS and everything else is Cambria (which I thought was a better alternative to Georgia).

So this is the part where I ask for feedback…Please feel free to tell me how it looks in your screen and what you love, what you hate, etc. I think I’ve been looking at this layout for too long that I really don’t know what to think about it anymore. I’m going to go outside and get some much needed fresh air…

I can’t believe I’m saying this but, I am so sick of this layout. You have no idea. 

Time for another one!

So here’s the scoop: All my previous blog entries are deleted. It really sucks but it had to be done. Something went wrong when my host switched servers and the only way to fix it was to reinstall Expression Engine. So yeah, I’m right back to square one.

I guess it’s not so bad though. At least I backed up everything and my layout is okay. It feels like this site is getting the fresh start it needed, just in time for the new year.

Anyways, I only have one more week left of school so I’m planning to make a nice holiday inspired pre-made layout before I hibernate for the Christmas break. Speaking of Christmas, I checked off pretty much everyone on my Christmas list except for a few more cousins…and my mom. Leave the best for last, right? This year, we’ll be celebrating the holidays in my cousin’s house in Windsor, as always. Maybe we’ll even get to go shopping in Detroit!

I just have to get through these last three days of school. Just three more days…just three more days…just three more days…