Ah,this is the best what I can show for the moment being. A little more and I’ll be spilling the beans of my upcoming (not to be publicly released though, sorry guys) WordPress theme. teddy-risationâ„¢ Theta is the 8th generation of my custom made, hand-coded WordPress theme, starting from Alpha of course. There’s a comprehensive list of screenshots of my previous WP themes at the about page, you can head over there to have a look at the older ones. I actually have two older ones – the Green and Blue versions but they’re so ugly that I wouldn’t be specifically calling for them here. Nonetheless, they are one of my first few experiences with full-scale theme design for the WP blogging platform.
The upcoming theme will be presented in an even more minimalistic way than the current layout is (you’re currently viewing Eta at the moment this post was published). It still consists of lots and lots of blue, a dark background evident from the screenshot, and a faint-coloured content holding area. I’ve always been dreaming of trying out a completely dark background theme but after seeing how Veerle and Abduzeedo (just to name a few) pulled out the colour scheme is such a divine way, I gave up trying it and stuck to the conventional white background black text variation.
If you haven’t noticed, I’m also in the process of rebranding this blog – the capitalised ‘Y’ and ‘N’ in the blog title has to go, I told myself. I’ve also started using Terry or Teddy instead of the teenage-feel ‘teddY’ nick when leaving comments on your blog. The nick was created almost half a decade ago by a teenager who has never knew much about design and branding, let alone the stupidity behind weirdly capped words.
The theme will be ready around the weekend, or latest by Tuesday if everything goes well. Claudia has engaged me to design a WP blog for her, I just submitted the mockup to her today morning. She’ll be forwarding the decision to me on Monday, so that I can start with the skinning of the WP theme. I think I will most probably be using Sandbox as the base theme because I have been using it for the past three themes and it’s such a joy to use :) If the Theta is not ready to be released by then, it will probably take another week or two to be finally done with. That is because I’ll have to place my client’s (and my paying job!) at top priority. Converting the PSD for Claudia shouldn’t be so hard this time because I’ve struggled and learned a lot when designing Theta. Theta is my first theme being converted from a true PSD to XHTML/CSS – I can’t believe that in the past, I just had a rough sketch of what I want in mind and then jump direclty into the coding. Nightmarish scenario!
Fonty Friday!
TGIF! I’m a little late for those GMT +7 and beyond folks because it’s already Saturday by now. Introducing you Petit Latin by Manfred Klein, a gracious, beautiful serif font. I’m personally not very fond of serifs because of my very specific taste for the little tiny ticks (serifs, as they call it) at the tips of the characters – besides from Georgia, I can only name Petit Latin.
How to convince (insert name) to lock up the door
This is a hilarious prank video I was directed to on Facebook yesterday. Zachary posted about it and I laughed just so hard! Note: if you have a instrinsic, deep-down, uncontrollable and potentially fatal fear of the Jason mask, do not proceed (I’m just exaggerating by the way, but don’t tell me you weren’t warned).
Here’s the video description:
This kid wants to teach his aunt that she should lock her doors by putting on a hockey mask and scaring her while she is on the phone. Her reaction from the scare is awesome.
p/s: I love his aunt’s ringtone!
Updates on life
I hope you are not royally pissed of me for not leaving comments on your blogs. Life is a little too busy for the moment being – juggling the design of two WP themes is already enough, let alone my commitment of swimming 10km every week during the entire summer (I can also use that to prepare myself for the Perhentian Islands vacation). Today was a little unusual because I actually swam 5km instead of the stipulated 2.5km – the pool was surprisingly empty for a Friday evening and so I siezed the chance to swim a few more laps. When I hit the 40th lap (one lap is 2 x 50m – on the 50m long pool, it’s a return trip teehee) I told myself that since I’m already into it, I might as well double my day’s goal from 25 laps to 50 laps.
I train in sets of 3 laps (6 x 50m, that is) – 2 breaststroke (B) and 1 freestyle (F), and I cycle between BBFBBF for the set. I wouldn’t call it training because I’m not aiming to join some competition from my swim – swimming to me is exactly like photography and blogging to me – I have never had any idea in mind to earn money (or anything equivalent) from it, and I treat it as a personal pursuit and responsibility, a hobby that I indulge and a past time to enjoy. I embrace swimming only when I return home because the club pool is always vacant on weekday afternoons and I can have a whole pool to myself – plus a lifeguard watching over. It feels like you’re having a bodyguard because he just has to look after you and make sure that you won’t drown, haha.
Lately I’ve been watching Judge Judy off and on during design work to take my mind off things – it’s funny to know that there are still so many stupid people around. Like how this dumbo sued her friend over a damaged toilet seat, and the case was dismissed in 2.5 minutes haha. EPIC FAIL, I tell you. You should listen to Judge Judy’s comments, very hilarious indeed.
Oh, and the crappy local ISP, Streamyx, is making Twitter load at a crawl for me. I hasn’t been on for days and I’m itchy all over! I call that the Twitter Withdrawal Symptom. Darn. Well, Streamyx is shiteous at its best. So much for being a monopoly in the Malaysian broadband market.
That’s all for today! :) have a great weekend!
waah! the preview itself already looks nice. can’t wait for the full view. :)
It’s done! Yay! Check out the latest post for more information of the new theme, heh. Thanks for dropping by!
Oh my lord. That video of Judge Judy was outrageous! Some people are just idiots, haha. I do love the honesty of Judge Judy though, hehe. I watched a little of it today while we were visiting my grandmother. Funny stuff!
I also seen that video of the guy scaring his aunt, hehe. I think Ellen DeGeneres (love her!) showed it on her show, haha. His aunt was so darn adorable!–trying to jump over the porch, lol!
I’m soo excited about seeing your new WP theme! I love the snippet you showed. Lovely colors and texture! I do admire minimilistic layouts, I’m working on one myself! At first I was tired of the layout I had been working on.. but I stuck it out for a few more days and after adding more detail & character to it, I’m loving it. :D Can’t wait to show it off & start using it!
Congrats on getting the opportunity to create a theme for someone (and get paid for it at that!) I’m sure you’ll do a great job. I hope you share it with us once you’re finished. =)
I didn’t know you loved to swim. I wish our pools weren’t so crowded or else I’ll be over there swimming every day! That’s really admirable and great of you to set a goal in swimming every week and stick with it! And you knocked out half the distance in just one day! Very impressive, Teddy! I sure wish I had a pool ALL to myself, haha. One day!!
I am going over to my aunt’s tomorrow for a family cook out and she has a pool! But I probably won’t get to swim since Chris and I have to be at his student’s graduation later than afternoon. Chlorine hair = no bueno, haha. I’ll at least stick my feet along the edge. :)
Hope you’re enjoying your week! Have a good one, Mister Teddy!
Check out Latrina’s latest blog post » The five finally together.
Indeed. Isn’t it downright stupid that you sue someone who broke your toilet? I mean, come on, things break and not as if she intentionally caused the damage. I love her sarcasm! I’m wondering, did you watch Judge Judy on TV at your grandma’s place or is it on the computer via the interwebs?
I’m a big fan of Ellen too. She has this great sense of humour, doll-like face (I must say that I love her eyes the most) and is very smart at words. My friend sent me this video back then about Ellen with her Hawaiian Chair – too hilarious to watch! Anyway, back to that video, I laughed so hard at the sight that his aunt can’t get over the fence, LOL!
The texture is only for the header and footer (you would have realized that by now, haha). The theme will be simpler than the previous one – minimalism is something that I always hope to achieve. Good luck for your new theme! I can’t wait to see that what you’re cooking up behind the scenes, heh.
Oh, I got hooked up to swimming only recently. I was a regular swimmer back then but I wasn’t totally crazy about it. The warm summer weather here is partly to blame for that! The pool water is quite cold even in hot afternoons, so nothing beats staying cold in the pool while still getting exercise done and a tan as a bonus. You can try going to the pools at odd hours (and when its open, that is) – I visit the pools around 4~5pm because people will be either done with their afternoon swim, preparing for dinner or not back from school/work.
Wow, that sounds really cool! I always love cookouts but usually for my family gatherings, everyone is so busy talking that we actually eat just a little bit – and we’ll all turn into hungry wolves even before supper, haha!
Have a great weekend too, Trina!