Here’s a sneak peek at what the new Omari’s Sister home page will look like.
Here’s a link to a bigger image.
The background images were made in Illustrator and I put everything together in Fireworks. The image is a composite of components I drew in Illustrator and elements I purchased.
I will start making the actual images and coding tomorrow.
Omari’s Sister Translations is live at:
http://translations.omarissister.com
I have only posted the chapters 4 and 5 of “Zettai Heiwa Daisakusen.” I will post chapter 6 tomorrow and chapter 7 later. I’m currently in the process of translating chapter 8 (I’ve been slowed by putting up the website — hahaha!).
Anyhow, I got to play around with some Javascript. I used a modified version of the 3-state button code from the Negrino and Smith Javascript book and I did fierce battle with the tabbed panel script that comes with Dreamweaver. I started playing around with a drop down menu for the chapter selection, but I decided that wasn’t necessary and went with links in the right side secondary menu column. I felt it was better to get to the point, rather than have the user hunt around the UI looking for a way to read the chapter they want. Yep … I had to remind myself to keep it simple.
Next is the tough part because I have to do specific page layout styles to fulfill the assignment requirements. The current website uses a hybrid style. I still have to make a page in which everything is liquid and one that is completely fixed. My feeling is that form follows function so I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about matching functions for those forms. I think for the liquid layout I will modify an existing page for mobile devices. This makes sense to me because you don’t know how the different mobile browsers will render the page, so if it done as a liquid layout, the page will fill the width given. As for the fixed, the only thing that comes to mind is a “print friendly” page. So … whoo-hoo! A “print friendly” might be a good opportunity to play with PHP … hmmm …
Anyhow, check it out. I like the way it turned out :).
“Lovely Items” is a concept that I got from years of watching anime and reading manga. It’s the idea that a character needs a lovely item to endear them to the other characters within the story and with the viewing audience. There’s a good discussion of this in “Ouran High School Host Club” in which the Host club tries to make the son of a yakuza boss more approachable. The idea of a lovely item can be as abstract as a personality quirk and as concrete as a signature piece of jewelry. In essence, a lovely item is something that gives an object or and individual a distinct personality and facilitates approachability. And so, that is what I want to do with my Lovely Items website. I want to share the lovely little graphics that I make with who ever wants them so they can add some personality and friendliness to whatever web or print project they are doing.
This idea was born out of a little discussion I had with my Dad last week. I had just finished redoing my personal website and I was feeling very empowered. I wanted to do more work on websites and expressed to him that I’m willing to do it voluntarily for the experience. Our concern, though, had to do with my “cute affliction” in that if I can’t get passed it, the range of customers I can design for will be limited. My feeling is practice, practice … but at the same time, I should get the most out my cute affliction and develop it. So here are some short term and long term goals for myself with this website:
This is something that I would like to do on the side while having full-time career. I figured that now while I’m looking for a job and while jobs are scarce I should use the time to learn new skills and develop my innate talents. I would love to do this sort of thing, too, for a company, focusing on the usability and visual appeal of web, web-to-print, and print-to-web projects.
So please stay tuned as my Lovely Items adventure begins. One of my good friends suggested that I start by making some lovely wallpapers for mobile devices like the iPhone and cell phones … :).
www.lovely-items.com coming soon to bring loveliness one pixel at a time.
Well, I finally did it! I completely re-did my personal website. I used Dreamweaver and all the fancy new tricks I just learned in the class I am taking. I also learned how to use the new Adobe website tool, “Fireworks.” It’s a tool that should be apart of Dreamweaver that can be used to mock up website graphics really fast. Other tools I used were Illustrator for the title graphics and the flowers in the menu bar, Flash to generate the graphics for the menu and to create all of the galleries, and Fireworks for the content graphics. I absolutely LOVE the way it turned out :). I’m so proud of myself. I feel now I can take on any personal or small business advertising website design assignment. Now onto expanding my knowledge of javascript and some server side scripting so I can start putting together more complete solutions. Anyhow, check it out!
Check it out! It took me a total of ~12-hours from blank sheet of paper to website. Most of the time was spent prepping the photos in Photoshop. I had to fix the color, crop them, crank down the resolution, and resize the images to fit within the browser window and to reduce the overall file sizes. I also did a little “magic” to some of the pictures. Since this was part of an assignment, I had to do some goofy things I wouldn’t do like use tables. I’ve very pleased with the way it turned out given the boundaries of the assignment. (I’m so glad I know Flash!!!) Here’s a link. Enjoy getting to know my guinea better and some more of my incessant cuteness.
More Rambling 
