It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
Apr 29th, 2007 by B.
Ok, site’s been updated to the most recent version of wordpress, there are some nifty new features in the sidebar and everything appears to be in good working order. Yay! Technical stuff aside, the most noticeable differences are the new themes, courtesy of Jeanni. I mentioned in an earlier post how much fun it’s been watching the evolution of these new skins. Each day I’d go visit the test site and see some of the remarkable stuff she was doing and get excited all over again. But I guess to fully appreciate the end result, you’d have to understand the path taken to get there. Here was mine:
After spending countless hours researching different web design sites (and coming away feeling like nothing was quite right) I was just about to give up and stick with standard skins when Jeanni said “you know, I could do it for you and, no, it wouldn’t be an imposition”. Score! So she asked me to give her an idea of what I wanted… concept, colors, fonts, setup (one side bar… two side bars… random rotating header… etc) number of skins I wanted; you name it. I knew I was looking for skins about travel- and not specific to Germany (I think we’ll live in europe for a long, long time… hopefully forever… but not always in Germany, so I’ve always tried to stick to blog names/themes that can travel with us and not need to be updated with each move), but still it was tough trying to figure out what, exactly, I wanted.
I ended up sending her a few photos that I thought touched on what I was trying to get across. A girl hitchhiking while holding a ‘paradise’ sign (I’m one of the few expat holdouts that still believes — even after living here — that europe is just about as close to paradise as you get). Another showed a girl sitting alone in an airport typing on her laptop. I didn’t think any of the photos were exactly it, but I figured it was a start, and she seemed excited by them. What happened next was totally cool… she took the normal, boring photos I sent her and morphed them from this:
into this:
And this:
into this:
I’m absolutely in love with the second set and the overall ‘litmus’ theme… it’s like travel, on acid. I love all three themes. And the third, voyeur, was a total bonus that she saved as a surprise. I’d only asked for two skins (figuring that was enough of an imposition)… but I’m so glad I got the third one. I love how the reflection in the binoculars is actually snippets from the paradise skin. Something else I’d never have thought of, and how cool is that?? Plus orange is my favorite color… I didn’t really think it could be used in a skin without looking too bright or retro or orange julius or something, but I love it completely.
Anyway, I’m trying to convince her to go ‘pro’ with web designing… not sure if she will or not, but she at ;east deserves lots of credit. It’s a real gift to look at raw material and see something there that others just can’t envision. So, thanks, Jeanni, I love it. Not only is it completely cool, but it feels like… me. Maybe that comes from you knowing me so well, or maybe it’s just a byproduct of being really, really good at what you do. Either way, it just goes to prove the old adage… it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
P.S. Anyone who might have emailed me at the b@eurotrippen address between the 25th - 28th, please know that due to an sql error I wasn’t able to download mail during this time. I promise I wasn’t being rude by not responding… and if you resend, I’ll get it now.
Love the designof the site. The Litmus skin is impressive and trippy!
Let me be the second to say “OOoooo” - and - “Aaaahh”. Worth the wait Ms. B.
I have spent more than a few evenings sitting around hitting “refresh” as J. worked on various live websites, tweaking & tuning … finding balance. And her holiday flourishes were fun too !
Good job !
Great new designs. I can’t decide which I like best though, they’re all good!
Hey B, I love the new page, it looks amazing! Well done
I love the new look! It must feel a little like getting a new haircut. I need to get both of those things accomplished myself. (And I sort of prefer people with a Lenny Bruce factor.)
Thanks guys… Jeanni’s a genius and I’m lucky she took pity on me. All credit goes to her.
Blythe - you actually read far enough down to get to the Lenny Bruce factor?? If I’d known people were going to for really read it I might have been less honest. heh.
Oooooooooh!! Do you think maybe she read MY pleading post and can help meeeeeee??? (http://northwestladybug.blogspot.com/2007/04/help-blogging-wizards-and-wizardesses.html)
Carol
All the skins looks great, but I like voyeur the best. I love orange too! Jeanni is the best!
Your times are wrong though, at least the one for the US East Coast. It’s an hour fast.
Trish - Are you sure the time’s wrong?? I’m almost positive we’re six hours ahead of the east coast, which would make the sidebar clock correct.
Man, that’s going to bother me… now I have to go google it to make sure. lol
yeah, the time is right… and yay, i love not having to do the math.
b, one thing i know is that together we make an excellent team… i still think the two of us could effectively rule the world…
Love the new look. Litmus and Voyuer look great but on my computer Paradise is not quite right. The text is too wide for the page and the sign post back ground doesn’t match the rest of the back ground. I thought you would want to know.
Carolyn - I just emailed you - thanks for letting me know. I’ll for sure look into it.
OOOOOOHHHHHH! I like the new look. So impressive - I can barely upload photos and you can morph them (or know someone who can). Impressive!
I was just testing you! Actually, somehow MY computer clock changed itself.
This is me with egg on my face.
They are all great! But beside the artistic aspect I must add a small “but”: the artworks seem huge to me. On my screen resolution of 1024×768 I don’t even see if there is a new entry without scrolling down.
Sebastian - Wow, we run the same resolution and I don’t seem to have that problem… I’ll have to look into it. Thanks for letting me know.
I’m using Firefox and when the tab bar is visible, the first entrys title disappears from screen. But never mind, I will soon get used to it