Kitty&Wool's Upgrading... WordPress Time!

After much deliberation, I have decided to change my blog over to the wonderfully powerful WordPress! This is mainly for two reasons -

1. Blogger won't delete your blog (They even deleted their own blog once... http://bit.ly/6zURlr)
   
2. WordPress is a CMS (Content Management System) and I want to experiment with how it can be integrated into my website - http://www.danielryland.co.uk
3. It also displays some really good statistics on your blog, telling you how many views per day your getting.

OK, maybe that was 3 reasons but the first one was a bit of a joke.

So from now on, Kitty&Wool with be WordPress-ing instead of Blogger-ing and can be found here -

http://cityandwool.wordpress.com/

P.S. Notice Kitty&Wool has now become City&Wool... this, I hope, will become my professional brand.

I've Come to a Big Conclusion!

I have successfully been able to research ways of how I might approach getting work experience or a work placement and conclude that networking is crucial to my success and very important. Through self-promotion and using social media sites to network, I see these as invaluable ways of getting my name and work known by other designers and design agencies.

In light of this, I will be improving my online portfolio by wiping off the cobwebs and updating it regularly with more current work and blog articles, signing up to more designers and agencies via Twitter feeds to get a wider understanding of their thoughts and works and I will also start signing up for newsletters and RSS feeds in order to increase my knowledge of certain works within the wider industry of interactive media.

I have also come to realise that creating a creative CV in an innovative way and sending it to different design agencies and companies would be a unique way in which I could get my foot in the door.

In doing all these steps, I will ultimately develop myself as a multimedia practitioner on an interactive pathway and be developing and expanding my network as a whole to help me in getting work experience or a work placement in the near future.

OK, it sounds very 'essay-like,' (which it is) but over the Christmas holidays I hope to start putting into action these methods highlighted. I've started by re-jigging my blog template and adding various links to my top bar.

Over the next few weeks, I will be giving my online portfolio a new like of paint and trying to design something that can be implemented throughout my other social media links, for example, my blog and Twitter pages.

'Google will run the world someday'

'Google will run the world someday' is one of many comments added to Google's new, creative take on their browser features in Chrome. I must admit, the really like the video and hope you do too. Enjoy!

Trent CU - Mission Week Hoody Design

Brief
Design The Mission Week Hoody
Open to everyone to design our mission week hoody for this years mission week in February. You need to design the front and back of the hoody.

Requirments

• You can only use one colour
• Must have mission week dates (22nd - 26th February)
• Must have the bible verse Romans 6:23
• Must have the 'Free' logo (Please feel free to be original with this)
• Needs the Trent Christian Union logo on it

My Entry

Front

Back

Browser Compatibility - Are Your Sites Cross Compatible With Other Browsers?!

Browser compatibility is a big thing which can sometimes be over-looked ...and makes me ask the question - 'Why can't Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera and all the other browsers just be friends?!'

I'm probably going to be waiting quite a while for my question to be answered so in the meantime I'm just going to have to check that my site works on the main 5 browsers which are - Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari and Opera.

Thanks to Browsershot.org, which checks browser compatibility and cross platform browser, I've managed to check my site to make sure its cross compatible with more than just the 5 above and older versions of each browsers. I also went into the trouble of downloading Google Chrome, Safari 4 and Opera 10 to test the whole site works.

...Now comes that bad news... All the layout are fine but my Javascript gallery doesn't work in Safari 4! So this is one element to look at. Another point that is different across the 5 browsers is the way it deals with the Javascript attached to the 'Remove Style' button.

Using the same code, here are the outcomes of each browser. As you can see, Firefox and Opera get it right!

Speakers Corner Website - LIVE

It's been two days of solid work but I has finally paid off, and I'm really happy with the final product.

My website was designed for Speakers Corner -

'A bar on the corner of Penrhyn and Abergele roads in Colwyn Bay (just west of The Central pub), Speakers Corner offers a wide selection of smoothies, coffees, juices and alcoholic drinks, as well as cakes & hot ciabattas, art exhibitions and an eclectic mix of great bands of an evening.'

Below are images that link to the XHTML pages. All pages are valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS Level 2.1 as checked by The W3C Validation Service.

My Javascript elements include the following -

• Change font size (Small, Medium or Large)
• Change style (Removes the linked style sheet and replaces with background colour blue and font colour yellow to make it easier to read, see last image)
• Photo gallery (Simply photo gallery using Javascript display a larger version of the thumbnail when clicked on)
• Lightbox (Added to enlarge images on the 'Music' page)

The Lightbox element was added as an extra.

Creative criticism welcomed!

Late Night Worker

As you can see, it's 2.30am and I've been working on my website all evening. I've completed the home page, about us and contact page by working off the initial XHTML valid home page to create the two other pages, which in their turn will also need validating. I'm three pages down and three to go! The music, art and events page will probably be done tomorrow as the matchsticks holding my eyes open are starting to break under the pressure.

I'm also needing to add in the coding for one of the Javascript elements which will be the ability to remove all CSS attached and just view a simply text version of the site. This will be on all pages.

Here is a final screenshot of the home page only. After completing the whole site, I will hopefully upload it for public testing and critique.

Quick little peak...

Here is a quick little peak at my index page for Speakers Corner's website, a bar in my home town of Colwyn Bay in North Wales. (No doubt subject to change)