Before I came up with this theme, I was messing with one of the Woo Themes called Irresistible.  In a matter of fact, I was so zoned into modifying that theme, that I was completely stuck.  My boyfriend also told me that isn’t “me” that the theme was too dark and grungy.  He said I need something “happy”.  Got a few ideas of “happy grunge” and things like that, but just couldn’t incorporated the idea.  After a while, I just decided to scrap the entire thing and started off somewhere else.

I started to work on the logo first, and I had a good idea what I want.  I really like the + signs embedded inside the logo that because that translate my idea of “learning” – also inspired by video games such as The Sims.  When a Sim learns something new, it gets a ++ sign over their heads as in gaining level.  After working on the logo for a while and picked two colors I really like, Orange and Dark Gray – I took a break:

Then I randomly grabbed a photo book lying around on my desk – which was by Getty Images – titled Infinity.  Flipped a few pages, and there I had it:

Then I drew the layout on a piece of paper, along with the logo I already had to glue the ideas together.  I’ve always been a sucker for simple designs, and flat colors.  So it is ended up as what it is right now.  A few people suggested, actually 5 of 3 people suggested that it is better centered.  Up till yesterday, the layout was still left aligned.  So there, I’ve taken other people’s advice and made it centered.  I am still fixing minor things here and there, but the site looks 90% the same across most major browsers – especially IE6.  There are a few plugins seem to be broken, because it is screaming when you open the site in IE – need to sort that out.  Eventually, I’ll have to fix up Sociable because it has a lot of invalid HTML/CSS, even though my theme is validated.

One last note, if you are using WP-Spamfree‘s contact form, the Submit button alignment will probably drove a lot of you crazy.  That because the author add a <label> before each <input> field excepted the Submit button.  If you dig inside the plugin and find the “contact form” and insert <label></label> before the submit button, you will able to adjust the alignment a lot easier.

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A few days ago, I told myself that I need to reject the idea that I can’t draw.  So I started to look at tutorials how to draw and learn how to “think”.  One of the methods is to think each objects in line and shapes how that object is made up instead of let the brain telling me what that object is.  Using that method, I tried vectorizing an image.  I feel that helps me to learn how to put the shapes together as much as drawing – and the product was my USB icons.   The result was quite good, and that was a very good exercise apparently…

Because I had an inspiring moment when I was watching TV.  A very flashy, colorful commercial came up.  I don’t remember what commercial it was, but I started to look closely at a single object and followed it across the screen, quickly break the object down with line, shapes, and analyzed how I could achieve it as a drawing.  That was an interesting and inspiring moment, because I felt excited as I was analyzing the image on the TV screen.  That night, I had a vivid dream of a layout – next morning, I was able to recall the layout, colors, and drew it out on a piece of paper.  I guess I looked at and fed my brain enough design elements that entire day, and thinking in lines and shapes that a “dream” layout appeared.

Who would’ve thought dreams can be an inspirational source, eh?  Have you have a inspirational dream?  Do tell.

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