My Own Dot Com Refreshed!

So now here's the acid test if you did stay tuned or not!  Sorry for the lack of updates last week.  I mainly worked on personal projects during weekends (this blog and web site, Trillian Cordillera, to state a few), but I spent last last weekend in Providence doing a yard sale to get rid of my junk.

This weekend I went to participate in Agora II and GGRD so there wasn't much time left.  My diary has been blank for the last two months not because nothing was happening... but TOO MANY THINGS are happening and I have no time to write them down!  I have also been constructing my own kitchen, and I'm still doing it this week, all the way till NextFest coming this weekend.  Hopefully I'll get done with it because my friend is coming to visit.  More updates from all these personal and public events soon.

Back to business.  I re-launched my own main web site yesterday with a new design that aligns with this blog, my resume, portfolio and the upcoming web portfolio.  I did away the link to my old blog and added links to the portfolio.  They are all very Tadao-Ando-ish clean designs, as it wouldn't be nice if the web steals all the thunder from my individual works.  It also reminds me of Stanley Sy's site somewhat.  (Where did he go these days?)  After all, the web site is just a container and it doesn't need to be extravagant.

P.S. Nice surprises hidden in the page.

Status...

To keep you posted, here's a small update of what's going on... since two days ago.

In the office: Like what Scott had said, there is a pair of new skins to be a coherent set for the branding strategy of Trillian Astra.  They are pretty much all coded, polished and set to go and will be updated as each new build adds more features.  These days I'm off to do the less mission-critical things, like a finalized full implementation of Stixe Icon Packs.  So expect some serious fun when public alpha comes.

At home: I worked at home today.  Not very productive.  Spent too much time reading the forums and comparing Xbox 360 and the iTV.  I went to Home Depot early morning to get wood for building the lamp rack for my new kitchen...

My car was also fixed yesterday with a new and (unfortunate) expensive catalytic converter for the exhaust, so now it doesn't sound like a biker driving down the street anymore.  Andy also taught me that all car mechanics tended to make oil seeping (normal) sound like oil leaking (big big problem).

What I'm working on right now...

Nothing so secret... Aha! You guessed it! This is exactly what I'm working on right now: a new layout and CSS for this very blog. This is what is going to look like, as told by Adobe Illustrator...

It is pretty plain and simple. Not that I am lazy, but I do want to set up the site as soon as possible so I can show you the real stuff. It is in line with all the other personal stuff I have. (well, I guess the only thing you can see right now is outdated resume (PDF link)...)

Even though the stuff that I do are mostly much more complex and colorful than this, I want this site to be as clean as possible because it is a museum of my own. The subtle gradient background is pretty much the most obvious design decision here, in which it mimics a clean wall white-washed by Ultra Pure White with natural sunlight shone on top. It is slightly khaki-ish to match my theme color, which has always been red and orange.

Just a very architectural setting here and there. Futura is my default font, due to its architectural quality and its affliation with concrete poetry, the Fluxus and Barbara Kruger. Very strict and thick borders at 40px.

I was thinking if I should put an image in the header, but then I realized that it was just a fad after an hour of trying to fit black & white photographs in there. Since the header image appears in every single post in future, there is no image on top of my head that would be complimentary of the content all the time. It was be just an annoying reminder of an unrelated image, and such header image would put unnecessary contrast with the image in the post. Therefore, no image. Clean.

Now the next thing I need to do is to figure out how to WEFT the Futura font into the page. :)

This is The Arkidect...

Hello all, this is Kid. If you are here, you probably know me either from my work in Trillian, or in person when I tried to shove my newly printed business cards to you.

So... Welcome to my yet another new blog! I don't know how long this will last, but hopefully it will be useful and interesting to you so I'll keep writing. Unlike other blogs I had done before, this will be strictly business, i.e. not personal stuff that you don't understand unless you know me. (Not that you will understand it if you are my friend anyway.)

This blog will be about the art and design I have been working on lately. I will post my work in progress here from time to time, so you can look and drool at it, and hopefully I can get some useful comments in return to improve my work. I'll try to accompany each post with at least one visual thing. Sometimes I may also post things about things that I like, or criticisms and rants about things.

Stay tuned! :D