Mine was kind of like this but cooler and published two days sooner! (A chalkboard and chalkboard font but mine was real picture of someone standing in front of a real blackboard and I wrote on the board in Photoshop freehand with a chalk-like brush) The blurb below on this page says there was lots of explanatory journalism that weekend (which mine was, also!). I know they were all copying me... :)
http://www.brasstacksdesign.com/bfd/012107.html

news design

(Ignoring the blah design of this worthless blog,) I'm getting that news designer's itch again. I want to make something cool.

About a week ago now I thought up this darn nifty photo illustration (inspired by the NWC website, nonetheless) that definitely drew reader attention to the not-that-fabulous article connected, yet I've gotten so many compliments on the story. I wrote the story, I know it's crap. It was the design that made it stand out.

Every page since that day has felt like a cop out.

Now I'm looking at newspagesdesign.com and brasstacksdesign.com. Mostly they make me feel inadequate. When I get back from vacation, though (one week to the beach!), I hope to start making some changes to the way I do layout and editing.

I love this in the middle here. http://www.brasstacksdesign.com/bfd/122806.html
(I have a permanent rail in the left column of my front page to work around, which really limits your design options. On the other hand, it's kind of nice to have the pool limited down from every possibility out there to a few less.)

I would have done that page all black and white, though, I think, anyway. Or at least that photo in the upper right seems wrong to me. And I'd have raised the drop-cap G up a few more points. And the three legs of body copy need some more room above them to breathe. I do like that tan. And the apple! The 'president', though, should be the same height as the three lines combined next to it. But nice use of space as a whole. And nice way to tie the photo into the page. I love that. I want to do it more. But it takes time and the right photo and forethought, which equals more time. So mostly time. Which I am definitely in the negative column on.

yo

Hi. This is a strange sensation -- downtime, the feeling that I could read a book and have time to watch a movie later. Work's been a little insane lately.

(By insane I mean I'm working more hours than I'm used to. Certainly many people I know work many more hours than this.)

Outside the wind is audibly picking up. Rumor has it it's supposed to get "cold" -- as in not get about 20. This is not January "cold" in my book.

What's new... I bought some yogurt.

I found a few tables I really like at Menard's. Now I just have to decide how much I like them.

We have a new in/out board at work. We got way too excited about it. (And that has gotten us in some trouble.)

I guess I can't think of anything else. And I'm getting both stir-crazy and drowsy. New drugs. Go figure.

thanks

Thanks for the many birthday wishes. It turned out to be a very nice day and weekend, easily topping last year. :) Other than the very beginning, when I got in my car and backed into something (just some scrapes in a small area, but still), it was pleasant.

I felt kind of guilty later in the day that I elected to spend so much of it alone. I figured that if it was my birthday, I should spend it doing what I wanted to do -- which happened to be things that are better done alone. Perhaps that was too selfish. Ah, well. What's done is done.

I spent much of the day at one of my favorite places in the world -- the state historical society library. :) I didn't find a whole lot and it was pretty busy, but there was some parking discount so that was nice.

Next I visited Ikea. It was my maiden voyage -- I hadn't realized before I got in the door that it's more of an experience than a shopping trip. You can't just swing by. It takes some time commitment. But I liked a lot of their stuff -- also didn't like a lot. Bought myself a children's tea set. :)

Later went to a cheesy movie. Meanwhile, my family calls my (dead) cell six times, worried that I'd been abducted or in an accident because I'd said earlier I might drop by as soon as 6:30. This is where I feel guilty -- spent the whole day without them, declined two lunch offers and another for a beer.

But today we did a nice family thing. My mom and my sister planned a nice Italian lunch, and then we sat around watching TV on mute and making fun of the people on it. (I always watch TV with closed captioning and sound. My dad and my brother prefer to watch it on mute with no closed captioning. My mom and my sisters are irritated by both of those habits.)

This should be another interesting week of work! Aren't they all...

one of these things is not like the others

a dog day in review