simplyjas.com/blog

Song of Songz

I was asked by Calyn and my bro to do a blog design for their singing blog. Think this is my fourth time designing for them?

The first two were for their own personal blog:

[Web Design1] Arts Fantasy Blog

[Web Design2] Petrina’s Blog

Then was their online shopping blog.

[Web Design3] An Immanuel Valentine’s

Then now is their music blog. This blog is called “Song of Songz” and is a blog that contains new songs written about God, to God. It should be “Song of Songs”, but the account was taken up.

Initially, it wasn’t suppose to host at blogger.com. I suggested to Calyn that Wordpress is a better blogging platform as we can use the plugin called the podpress to post music and videos there. It will generate a media player that looks like Mr Brown’s show.

After setting up an account in wordpress, i started to design the theme. Then i found out that I cant edit the template since I’m using the free account in wordpress. I can only allow me to choose default templates available, and cant do any designing on it.. So eventually, we decided to use blogger as I can do all the designing there.

If you are observant enough, this Song of Songz template looks so much alike with Calyn’s personal blog. Yup! Basically I used the same html codes and changed the banner picture, colours, the words at the sidebar, and more other functions.

This is the banner:

Drafted the banner, I started to create my mountains, grass patch, sky, lens flare. I’ve also used some brushes (like the flowers and clouds) I’ve downloaded from the Net to beautify the whole banner. Taught my brother how to use photoshop and he really did a great job by adding the grass and flowers. *clap clap*

Before the design was ready, they spreaded to everyone about this blog. But the banner is not completed yet. I need to create something like beanie man standing on the grass worshipping, jumping. But.. I’m very busy now.. AH~~~

  

This is my 7th version of wordpress theme for simplyjas.com/blog. And this is my most satisfied design of all. I named this theme as Love on the Island. All the graphic designs is done by myself, alone, without using other’s graphic design and paste it in my design. I started everything all from the scatch.

For this wordpress theme, I focused more on graphic designing and not on the codes. I used the brushes I have, the basic pictures I have in my Photoshop CS.

Actually, I got the code from the original theme Kukufall.

The original design looks like this:

 

Initially, my mind is filled with wild ideas and I couldnt combine everything all in one design. I can say that I struggled to get the theme I want. First, I started with a theme about the night. So, I got this design.

 

Then, I thought that it is a little plain and I was stuck and couldnt get the design out. So, I decided to change the theme to something in the day. So I have my sun, my clouds. Add in some plants. butterflies, and hills. Then I thought of getting the sea into the picture. So, i created a little pond, which links to a big sea (sidebar).

 

This is my 6th version of wordpress theme used for my blog and I named it as Japanese Doll. For this design, I planned to give it a lil kiddish look. That’s why I chose to use the pictures of the Japanese Doll. The pictures of the Japanese Doll were taken from deviantart, designed by 4sure. As for the design, I edited from Box-set theme which was initially designed by Paddy Ryan. And the initial design looks like this:

So, I changed the color scheme to pink, and added background picture for the theme. As you can see at the sidebar, I used the javascript provided at http://www.dynamicdrive.com/. When you hover to the picture of the Japanese doll picture, the picture fades in.

Valentine’s Day is around the corner. I was inspired to make a Wordpress theme suitable for this occasion.

First, get the background and the boxes drawn first. Then, insert the 3 different shapes of hearts to the sidebar.

Added a little pattern which I’m most satisfied with and I used it for one of my client’s project.

Create the word “LOVE” with different sizes and shades.

But the banner was still too plain. So, I created heart shapes with retro colors. Then, added a few circles to create a movement from the flower pattern to the heart.

Added different shades of hearts to the main bar.

Created GIF file with the retro heart shapes.