Yzabel / November 26, 2005

A Color Scheme Generator

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.

Yzabel / October 28, 2005

Yet Another Blog Idea…

Somehow, I must be crazy, masochistic and liking to juggle many tasks, because it’s been days I’ve been 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…

Yzabel / September 20, 2005

Typetester: Comparing fonts

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)

Yzabel / September 7, 2005

Monstercake

It had been a few days I had bookmarked this blog with the intent of writing a little blurb about it here, but I got sidetracked by my recent theories about languages, among other things.

Better late than never, here is Monstercake, “a cast of the odd, misfortunate, and downright horrible, brought to you daily” by Eugene Smith. Each blog entry intriduces some kind of “monster”, whether this is evident at first sight, or done with a more subtle approach. Sometimes scary, sometimes funny in some kind of twisted way, inks or watercolor, freaks or folklore monsters, these drawings aren’t always what one would expect of them at first, and the style is one I find very pleasant.

Today’s post features Cthulhu in a salaryman suit. Well, probably not Cthulhu, but isn’t it an interesting way of seeing things?

Illustration © Eugene Smith

Yzabel / July 31, 2005

A Glimpse Into VectorTown

Here’s VectorTown, a site I’ll be keeping under close scrutiny for now, since it may become an interesting venture:

Vectortown.com is aiming to be a global community of serious illustrators, designers and artists who have a desire to showcase their vector artwork. Our goal is to promote the artists within community and to further the exposure of this exciting and vibrant art form. Our mission:

In the past years, my own work has turned more and more toward the vector style, and thus I’m always on the look-out for such places and websites. This one probably still looks a little empty for the moment; however, for the interested ones, you can read there an interview of Cristiano Siqueira, which art is pretty much representative of the good kind of work that is found in the vector world.