See what I mean about the wisteria(top)? I saw a pot of these surreal pansies and shot this picture. I think I may use this as reference to create a vector image...that could become a pattern, end papers or just plain scrap for the next vernal job that comes my way.
The boys went off to the LPGA. K watched movies and I spent 4 hours on my animal client and the annual report/ year in review that we do...amending images, retouching, cutting in new copy, reviewing the rags, seeing what works, what doesnt. It was pleasant, almost serene to have the time to putz away on this. The week gets so harried from one identity crisis to another, from one "whoopsie daisy"--rush to the next--that a little buffer of time with no expectation was vacation for me.
I am reading the Dummys book on Wordpress. Wordpress is a blogging environment that I think will be the next step for me. You can host with Wordpress or host at your own ISP. You can set up community sites, or single authored sites. There are a zillion free templates with all the coding all ready done...that a header can be stripped into--and with the right color and type manipulation done with CSS, a relatively fresh looking blog can be created, controlled and modified as we go. Plus, as a bonus, I can port my Blogspot blog from Blogspot to Wordpress and allow me to control my fate, how its saved etc.--essentially not feeling somehow burdened by the who what why and ownership related to the Blogspot empire. And, to reinforce this, I can put my own graphics on the top. Not someone elses. Somehow inheriting a grid with some masterpage stuff is fine as there are a ton of choices and its the content, isn't it? Plus, the other piece is adding widgets to allow the reader's interface to be smoother, more interesting, more responsive, is another component where there are a ton of them that you can strip into your blog and have it operable. I know a tiny bit of HTML, and I am good with looking for bits of code to amend with color binhex numbers, and the flow diagram on fonts--which doesn't in anyway make me any kind of pro--but I can limp along. Lesson from the Vertical Response time this week setting up an emailer, the tools are familiar, the grids simple and when the color wouldn't change to my liking, I went into the code, found the color and typed in what I wanted..and it worked...affirms my thinking.
My thinking on web communications and how one delivers content is...keep it clean, keep it changeable, keep it VERY current and leave it at that. No one is coming to see the most "bent pinky" approach to the typography or the most elegant and stylish treatment of the white space--they are coming for the rant, for the picture, for the link, for the opinion or joke. Good design can be for the less flexible, the website, that adores flash and elegance...and might be a tad lighter weight in the fresh content. They both have a role, the blog and the website--how does a good communicator have them work for and with each other? And then, throw in the emailer? Wow.
So, essentially, its a way to put together blogs in a way that allows the designer a lot more visual, functional and organizational choices that can be delivered via the WordPress site, your own internet service provider that is either for individual authors or communitities. And, oh by the way, did I mention that it's mostly free? Now, all I have to do is read the book and give it a try. Worth it, eh?