Dutchism | A Way of Design

Personal Micro Sites

dutchism — Thu, 13 May 2010 05:10:26 +0000

flavors.me

I had a thought recently…(I DID!!!) I should create a site where people can share all of their online activities and identities and display them in one personal profile site.

This would include things such as Twitter Profiles, Facebook Profiles, Personal Blogs (tumblr, wordpress etc), Flickr and YouTube. You get the idea.

Seems I’m a bit late. I recently came across flavors.me and decided to create my own account after viewing the Intro video. The user interface for creating your own profile looked so simple and effective, so much that it won me over.

In the free version there are three main areas you can edit/ add things to.

Firstly the “About” area which is basically your home page info including your name and info about yourself.

"About" area

Secondly there is the “Services” section where you add your profiles from your other Social Networking Sites such as twitter etc.

"Services" area

And thirdly is the “Design” area where you pick your layout, fonts and color scheme.

"Design" area

I then decided to do some research and found some other sites that do the same thing, maybe not as well as flavors.me, but a lot of people find them useful.

Here’s a small list.

Of these other Personal Micro Sites I have to say magntize looks awesome. I will probably create my own account very soon.

If you have any suggestions for some other fantastic Personal Micro Sites, please feel free to suggest them by leaving a comment.

@font-face Changing the Face of the Web

dutchism — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:21:24 +0000

Up until fairly recently the web only allowed a limited number of display fonts. This is because the web relied on using the fonts the end user had on their computer.

View the post on WebDesignDev “16 gorgeous web safe fonts to use with css” to get an idea of fonts you can use safely.

However I recently discovered @font-face

@font-face allows you to specify fonts you have uploaded to your server to display text on your web sites. This means you no longer need to rely on the limited number of fonts your users have on their own computers.

I recommend using it mainly on Headings like I have done here at Bling Bling Bookkeeping especially if you are using a complex looking font, as it won’t display nicely at a smaller size such as 10px.

A great resource for implimenting this technique can be found at Perishable Press and agreat reource for @font-face kits which contain all required font formats and example code can be found at Font Squirrel.

JQuery Page Scroll to Anchor

dutchism — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:17:11 +0000

I found a great JQuery Plugin today that allows the user to click on a link and scroll to an anchor on the page rather than jump directly to it.

It also allows you to add a “back to top” link.

I have implimented in a site I am currently working on. go to www.amorica.net.au and click on the “About Me” link in the main nav to see it in action.

This awesome plugin is from Position Absolute and can be found here.

Dutchism Overhaul

dutchism — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:54:04 +0000

I have recently (yesterday) uploaded my new site, the one you’re looking at now. It’s not that the old one was no good, it’s just that this one is better.

I’ve gone for a whiter, brighter look and feel with a minimal colour palette to allow my portfolio pieces to shine.

I have incorporated Red Green and Blue (RGB) into my new logo and site design , in reference to the colour format used for screen display ie. used in web design.

I built this site on the Wordpress platform, creating my own theme using themeshaper’s framework as a blank canvas.

The Main Nav icons are courtesy of Tutorial9 and the Social Icons are courtesy of webtreats.

I came across a fantastic JQuery Slider months ago and am glad I have been able to take it and give it my own flavour. So thanks to CSS-Tricks for their Anything Slider Plugin.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the Dutchism Overhaul. Feel free to drop a comment.