I decided to throw out all the design stuff I had come up with, and just do something I thought was fun. So I’m going to create an 8-bit website… because, why not? I envision a sea of animated email gifs and marquee tags. How wonderful!
Author Archives: terry
CodeIgniter VoteSmart API Library
This is a pretty straight-forward library for CodeIgniter that allows you to access the VoteSmart API.
To get it working, simply drop config/votesmart.php into your config directory, and libraries/votesmart.php into your libraries directory. Load the library in your controller
$this->load->library('votesmart');
The call the votesmart query function like this:
$this->votesmart->query('CandidateBio.getBio', Array('candidateId' => 9026));
The first parameter is the API method you’re calling. The second parameter is an array of required variables, if needed. All the available methods can be found here.
You can download the code at GitHub
Busy
Moving and Work have side-lined by site redesign. Will hopefully get back to it within a few weeks or so.
Logo redesign, Site Map part 1
This evening, I still like my color palette, and last night I played around with the logo a bit. Here’s what I think is going to be close to a finished logo: 
I like the simplicity and typography. Also, it can be scaled down quite a bit, and the T and M still make it identifiable: 
Next up, I need to figure out exactly what I want on my site. Here’s a quick list, basically just a brain-dump:
- Portfolio page
- Blog
- About/ Bio
- Contact page/ form
- Maybe sub-portfolio pages… one for Web Design, Development, Print work, or whatever
- An experiment page, where I can post code demos or designs that I’m experimenting with
- Links, both to stuff I’ve worked on and to pages I like
- Tutorials/ Tips? Walkthroughs? May just keep that as part of the blog…
- Pictures/ Photos / Video
- Podcast? On something?
That’s just off the top of my head. And some of those probably don’t need their own page, they could live in the sidebar or footer or something.
Something else I need to think about is do I want to just categorize my Posts or use WordPress 3’s new Custom Post Types? As I think about it, it might be easier to use the Custom Types, because I know sometimes I will forget to categorize things the correct way. With a Custom Type, I know that “Experiments” posts will always go to the right place.
Next, I’ll probably start sketching out some layout ideas and get my sitemap nailed down.
Finding a Color Scheme
In the process of redesigning this site, I’m at a point where I’m not sure what I should be focusing on next. There’s layout, wireframing, a site map, a logo, textures, stock photos, self-created images/ photos, and many many more things. But after looking at some the sites I was inspired by, I saw a pattern that I really liked:
- Crisp edges
- muted, earthy tones
- some texture
- interesting typography
For the typography, I like the look of Frutiger LT, and created a simple text logo with that as the base.
I tried out some different kerning, and even whether to add a space between “Terry” and “Matula”. The top one I kerned each letter so that it only left about a pixel between each character. I’m not sure which one I like the best… and I played around with some colors and effects, so I might need to re-examine them later as a solid color.
Speaking of color, I went over to Kuler and checked out some different schemes. Keeping with some of the colors from the sites I chose, I picked out the “2004” scheme, with just very slight modifications:
I’m pretty happy with that. Now I need to decide whether I want a dark-on-light or light-on-dark style. And what do I want to include on the site and where…
Inspiration
Went through some sites with links to interestingly designed site. Here are a few screenshots I captured. Without thinking to much about them, I just grabbed ones that simply appealed to me. Next, I’ll try figure out why I like them…
New Site
I figure the first topic I’m going to blog about is the process of updating my site. First thing, I updated my site to WordPress 3… because WP is just awesome. My next step is to get a design I like.
I’ve got a couple of things I’m doing now. One, try and find some inspiration, specifically with a self-evident Google search. I’m also gathering some resources, mostly from this great Smashing Mag post but I also downloaded this 960 Grid to play around with.
For the design, I really want something that reflects who I am. The problem is, I’m not quite how that will work. Do I do a dark background with light text, minimal design, colors, retro, grunge? Or something else? A lot of times, I’ll see a site I like and use that as inspiration… but it’s not really me. It’s just a design I like the look of.
In Progess
Working on getting the new site up-and-running!