As I was working on a redesign for Paradygma—among other things, I want to make it more of a portfolio, not a showcase for every tiny bit of an illustration I’ve done—I realized that I’m really not fond of Flash. Not fond at all.

Every graphic-designer, illustrator and their dog seems to have this liking to creating their webpages in Flash. Alright, it’s pretty. The first thirty seconds. After this, I start to grow tired of not being able to open links into a new tab/window, of having to cope with intros and images displaying square by square or line by line only, in other words: all the bling-bling. I’m not really for the tacky stuff, and my, some of these are tackier than the deco of all of our five local Chinese restaurants put together.

I’d never thought I’d say that one day.

I believed the lack of inspiration was the worst thing in the world. That when it hit, it was a catastrophe. Well, I’ve just found out that the contrary can just be as problematic; there are only 24 hours in a day, and my chronic lack of focus really becomes a hassle in this case. (I can’t focus well nor for long, really. I hide it well, but I can’t.)

I’m currently in the throes of inspiration overload. Too many things going on in my head, too many things I want to do, much more than what I can do, in fact. Ideas for short stories are bursting out of my mind every ten minutes, and when it’s not for stories, it’s for illustrations. I can’t focus on work well, I can’t focus on finishing my novel, since five minutes into my writing, I already feel like doing something else, not out of lack of inspiration, but out of wanting to concretize other thoughts.

A quick link for today, but one I’ve found useful when it comes to web-design and picking the right color schemes: Wellstyled’s Color Scheme Generator.

Through the use of a wheel of colors, you can pick a color dominant, and see how other colors fare against it. Different options are available; whether you wish to prioritize the view of simple contrasts or to see how multiple color schemes are rendered against the chosen background, it’ll be easy to get a first idea of what a webpage will look like. A whole set of options also allows you to check how the displayed scheme will appear to color blind people (protanopy, full color blindness…). There’s much more you can do with it, but these are already a good preview of what this color picker lets you do.

I keep a stack of such little tools nearby. I always find them useful to see in a few clicks if the idea I have in mind can work or if it’ll be a visual aggression all by itself, this without demanding me to modify my stylesheets and upload them first.

Y Tags: colors | color+scheme | web-design

Somehow, I must be crazy, masochistic and liking to juggle many tasks, because it’s been days I’m toying with an idea for a blog about vector artists. Not as a community, not as a place to submit works, simply as a page where I could present these artists I find on the Web, whether professionals or not. (Alright, no kidding, I wouldn’t start running a whole community; this is WAY too time-consuming to my liking, and from past experiences, it’s really not that gratifying at all in the end. I don’t like burning out.)

You’d think such ideas would come to me when I have really plenty of time, but noooo, of course, it has to hit me right before NaNo starts and I’m seriously revising the whole outline for my sci-fi/science-fantasy/fantasy-that-isn’t-fantasy-anymore big story (now that Kittin has said she wanted in, a lot of things deserve the reworking). I both love and hate being like this, my mind bubbling with ideas, because I know I’ll absolutely want to put them to use yet will end up despising myself for taking on yet another project.

What do you want… I have such a soft spot for vector art and blogging…

Y Tags: blogging | vector+art

Anyone dabbling with websites should find this tool interesting—it can probably be useful in other fields of application as well. As its name clearly indicates it, Typetester lets you test your fonts not only in different types and weights, but also with different colors of text and background. This way, it becomes much more easier to see immediately if your next stylesheet will make text readable or not, without having to toy with the code first.

Among other things, you can define the font (either from a predefined list or from the ones installed on your computer), its size, the letter and line spacing, the alignment… I’ve tested it for some time today, and indeed, it allows for nice and quick comparisons. The next time I want to change the font on one of my blogs, I’ll know where to go to experiment.

(Link found through A lifetime supply of bravado)

Y Tags: fonts | web-design