I finished my 6 month placement with The Inspiration Engine in January, and at the moment I’m doing freelance web development.
My current clients are a plumbing business, a guest house in Romblon (which looks to be paradise on earth) and an experimental theatre company.
All three are giving me great freedom, I’ve managed to include some Javascript, a flickr API implementation, some progressive enhancement (changing highlight colour), and a simple database implemetation. These are all relatively new for me, and I’m loving the challenges that working for myself is given me.
Of course, as soon as these projects are completed, I will post links… so watch this space!
In other news, I’ve customised a new Wordpress theme, motion, with this lovely background – a NASA image of pleiades (aka The Seven Sisters). I love astronomy images, and hopefully this blog background will be inspiring to you too. I love it!
I’m playing with ideas for a redesign of this site, so I’m starting to look at other inspirational styles.
The first of these are handwritten and handdrawn sites, my favourites of which are shown below…
Heather Sloane
Heather Sloane is an illustrator, the use of her handwriting and drawings on the site allows you to see her work easily, without having to navigate to a portfolio. The simple site design also goes well with her illustration style.
Mel Kadel
Mel Kadel’s site uses handwriting throughout, in body text, titles, and navigation. It gives the site a really distinctive and memorable feel.
Swiths
Swiths site uses small amounts of handwritten text to add a personal touch.
Elan
Elan Snowboard’s use of handwriting, especially the bold caps titles, creates a very stylish, modern and edgy design, perfect for their product. And their website demonstrates that handwriting works on commercial sites, as well as designer profiles.
