And don’t tell me to get a Mac. I already have one.

With this theme I’ve gone back to a white background, kept it simple and hopefully kept it minimal. It’s heavily based on Hemingway with a few tweaks and extra functions added by me. These include post thumbnails, a wider site design (sadly you’re going to need something bigger than 1024 to fit it all in now), social functions in the sidebar, jQuery to the top button and a more fitting colour scheme.

As this is a more typographically orientated design I’ve also re-enabled WP-Typography, previously I had a few problems with it but I’m hoping they’ve all been sorted by now and will provide a better typographic experience. I’ve also gotten rid of the SexyBookmarks buttons, I’ve never really like them and they never seem to fit in properly though I suppose that’s their suppose; to stand out.

I hope you enjoy this new theme, and I hope I stick with it.

Edit: I forgot to say originally I’ve also removed the URL field from the comments as I was receiving so much spam because of it, I was getting bored with it all even if it was mostly caught by Akismet I just felt the need to get rid of the temptation.

Those reading this in an RSS reader won’t see the new theme that I rolled out recently, it’s the result of the past few months coding everything on my website. At one point I started again after completing the first version but common sense prevailed and I just incorporated what I liked about the newer theme with the new theme.

I’m sure you can see for yourself the differences, it’s remained a left aligned theme, the body is still set in Georgia though the headings are now in Helvetica/Arial and more clearly defined by their boxes.

I tried to make sure it validates and the main pages do, but the Blog falls to pieces due to the plugins and the fact I can’t fix any errors that are created by the PHP as I know nothing about PHP, and the Portfolio doesn’t, though that’s Vimeo’s fault for the non-validating embed code they give you.

With the new theme comes some other changes to when I post. The week in links will now go out Monday each week with Be inspired following it on Wednesday. This makes more sense for the week in links as then I’ve rounded up Monday to Sunday which just seems so much more logical.

So what have I changed?

I started with the Red version of BlogTheme by WooThemes and hacked it to fit 600 pixel content, put in some links and brought across the stylings that I liked from my old theme.

I didn’t have to change a whole lot to get this theme how I liked it, just faced a phantom code error for a few hours yesterday which is what took me so long.

All this coding meant that I missed the quick look post but I’ll be doing a proper tutorial next week. 

That’s all folks.

Those familiar with Grid Focus probably don’t need to read this but I thought I’d cover what the theme’s about and the changes I’ve made to it and the new posts that are coming.

What I especially like about Grid Focus was its standard colour scheme and that animated drop down Categories menu. I liked the strong top and bottom bar. To these bars I added an About, Contact and Credits (not quite ready yet) link, my Feedburner reader numbers and a jump to the top link.

I’ve also mirrored these changes to my Portfolio which I’ve bought back but will only be there to showcase my work, not talk about work in progress.

These changes also come complete with a new Home page which is nice to have all done, well almost, the Credits page isn’t done yet but the important stuff is up. It’s quite different from my Blog and Portfolio but I intended that as I felt those sections needed to have a more professional look whilst the other pages are more quirky and fun.

Also now using Shadowbox JS so images that don’t link anywhere can be expanded now. Brought back Sociable with larger icons. Related posts is there too. Also using Yoast’s Breadcrumbs and the RSS Footer plugins. Using Lifestream to supplement the lack of homepage lifestream but it won’t be missed that much.

Posts

In terms of content I’ll be continuing the weekly round up of links and as of next week will be making a weekly quick tip for Photoshop to begin with then moving into Illustrator and beyond, maybe even Cinema 4D if I get better at it. I’m doing quick tips because I can never focus long enough to get a complete tutorial done though I do hope to one day. Also going to do some more Collections for Illustration and Graphic Design.

But for now I hope you had a good Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

So if you haven’t seen this theme before let’s go for a little tour shall we?

Drop Down Menus

There are now more in depth categories, and the focus has shifted from pages to categories, you can find pages, archives, search and RSS in the top right now.

Archives

Although next month will only be the second month this blog has existed there’s room to grow now with a fully featured archives page with a grid of results for each month.

New focus

I needed everything to be in one place and now it is. The home page side bar contains all my feeds including Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo and del.icio.us. /Blog and /Portfolio have now merged as there really was no point in having two different blogs.

At the bottom

Another great thing about this theme is the built in contact form making it really easy to get in touch. Along the same lines you can find all the links of where else I’m at.

I’m working on getting the Thickbox plugin to work with the NextGen gallery which is what I used for the Portfolio pages, so they’re still out of order but I’ll get there.

Also hoping to add my own background designs and perhaps upping the contract as it’s all a bit grey currently, though I do like the design currently.

Got a nice big post coming up next week, full of great artists’ work.

Well this was just a quick update. More posts next week.

Pardon the week of no posts, been moving into my new University house and trying to get into a routine, which is difficult when I don’t have anything to do to keep me organised. I’ll be in University when this post gets published so I should be well on my way back into a routine.

Having recently moved in I thought it would a quick and easy idea to show you my desktop and workspace. It’s a bit lived in now so it’s slightly untidy.

What you see above is where I spend quite a bit of time, sometimes working, sometimes gaming but mostly just browsing around and watching TV.

Desktop wallpaper is mist — MD by ether from dA.

Okay working from left to right.

1. The two printers are a Canon MP600 and a Canon iX4000 A3 printer
2. 4 Port USB Hub with Printers attached and 8 gig Flash drive
3. These are covered in various things, a line print out, Tracing paper, iPod Touch, Tissues, Stapler, Bone folder and some pens and paper
4. Then there’s a Wacom Bamboo Graphics Tablet
5. 5.1 Creative Speakers
6. 3 Skypephone
7. Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 Keyboard
8. Logitech G7 Mouse
9. Dell 2408WFP 24″ Monitor
10. Hyundai ImageQuest 19″ Monitor
11. Apple MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Santa Rosa
12. Cutting mat with Knife, Pritt Gel, CD-Rs, Pritt Stick, Wallet, External Hard drive, Blu Tac, Ruler, Masking Tape and a Be Broadband Thomson Router
13. The main desk is a IKEA FREDRIK
14. Other desk is something from Staples
15. Custom built PC with Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz, 4 gigs RAM, 1.25 TB HD, BFG 8800GT OC2
16. Lots of power plugs

Installing ThickBox was a bit of a mess, first it got rid of all gaps between paragraphs then I messed up editing an entry and wrecked the home layout. Later I found out there were two div classes unclosed. Oops. But the gap problem was still annoying me then I tried the SmoothBox alternative and that fixed it.

I also decided to switch from tags to categories and my means of organising posts. Quite a few sites seem to do that anwyay or at least keep their tags hidden.

Progress is slow, but at least there is progress.

It was just quickly thrown together in Dreamweaver CS3. Also by chance discovered how to change the site’s favicon whilst installing Sweetcron.

I won’t be using tags to organise my work instead I’ll use categories to break down my work. After it’s appeared in the main posting area the work will then appear in the tab of the relevant category as a thumbnail gallery.

Simple idea which hopefully mean it works.

Thanks for taking a look.