Hi everyone, I hope you had a nice Christmas! As we’re officially languishing in the festive anticlimax zone I thought I’d take the opportunity to conclude this series of retrospectives before the rekindled excitement and increased alcohol consumption of new years eve gets in the way. After all it would seem a shame to have to revisit this old ground in a new year, when there are so many new ideas, designs and opportunities to rattle on about.
It’s September 2011 and the new website I’ve been agonising over for months is almost complete. It took a while because up until this point I had basically been cheating, using a template-based website builder to create my online presence quickly and easily without having to write any code. Consequently, I had to teach myself the basics of HTML, CSS, Javascript and enough PHP to integrate a WordPress blog before I could begin. Quite an effort you might think, but curiosity will do that to you. I never liked having a website that I didn’t build myself because I didn’t understand how it worked or how to fix it if something got broken, not to mention the fact that I was always constrained within a boxy template of someone else’s creation.
It may have taken months, but my curiosity is satisfied, I know my new site intimately and gained a great deal of technical knowledge that can be applied to other projects in the future. If you haven’t checked out the rest of the site yet, there’s plenty to see so feel free to amble around at your leisure. There’ll be some new work in the gallery later this week, and I’m planning to add a little gift shop in the new year, stocked with prints and other illustrated shinies™
Okay now a warning, the remainder of this blog is wedding related so if you’re the kind of bloke/sane woman whose brain shuts down the moment a female mentions anything even slightly matrimonial, you may want to click that little x in the top-right now. For those who are still with me, we’ve reached November and I’ve just finished a brochure for a certain Isle Of Wight Wedding Photographer called Chris Cowley. Chris wanted to showcase some of his work to prospective clients, so I came up with this clean and elegant design to match his existing website and branding. Click on the image to see more, or follow the link above if you’re in need of an excellent photographer for your wedding – I really can’t recommend him highly enough.
Following on from this in December, I was also approached by a nice lady named Lesa from I Heart Buttons. Lesa makes lovely vintage button bouquets for weddings and beautifully unique jewellery and decorations for all occasions, and she was in need of an advertisement for her company, again to harmonise with existing branding and showcase her work – I only hope that I did it justice! Make sure you check her site out, especially if you’re planning a wedding and looking for a creative, original bouquet that will last a lifetime.
So that brings us right back up to date in December 2011, armed with a few more unrealistic resolutions and ready to embark upon a new year. I’m not sure how 2011 was for you, but it certainly wasn’t my favourite of the 26.41 years I’ve experienced so far. I certainly learned a lot, tried new things and hit a few snakes and ladders along the way – but I can’t deny that 2011 has been a melancholy orbit. We’ve had tsunamis, natural and nuclear tragedies, protests, strikes and economical disasters, civil war, dead dictators and mad men running around with guns, not to mention Frankie Cocozza and the fact that Jedward are still breathing. Add to that a few sources of personal sadness, and the new year becomes a very attractive prospect. With so much room for improvement, this is a year for positivity.
My resolution is simply to make 2012 a happy year, and I plan on sticking to it.