All posts by Robin

I'm a woman in my early thirties living in North Carolina, USA, and I have a lot of varied interests; I love creative writing, music composition, web design, surfing the Internet, thinking out loud, and gaming. And yes, my glasses are crooked. :)
Tuesday on the Soapbox

Funny and AWESOME Dreams

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Since I did a post a few weeks ago about a few horrible nightmares I’ve had, I thought it only right to balance it with the following post about some of the funniest or most wonderful dreams I’ve had.

Indeed, my brain does bless me with some vivid happier or funnier dreams on occasion, which are (thankfully) just as memorable (and just as emotional) as some of my nightmares have been. For example:

Suddenly, I’m a Judo Master

One night very recently, I dreamed that I was out on the town one evening with my boyfriend’s mother and a good friend of mine from high school, who had her new baby son with her. As we were walking back to our cars from the restaurant we had just left, three guys jumped out from an alleyway and tried to mug us.

We were all ready to give them all the money we had, until one of the muggers swiped at my friend’s son, trying to tear him from her arms. Then all heck broke loose, and the three of us started kicking butt. My boyfriend’s mom was swinging this giant purple pocketbook around hitting the guys upside their heads, and my friend was protecting her son in one arm and punching each of them in the gut super-fast with the other arm. And I was throwing the muggers around, knocking ’em into each other and into walls and stuff (kinda judo-ish, but not really).

After a few minutes of us whooping up on them, the guys ran off without our money, cussing and limping. The three of us high-fived, and I woke up. XD

…And Apparently I’m a Dance Teacher, Too

A few years ago I had a dream about being abducted by aliens. It was the whole typical setup–weird noise outside my house, I go out to see what it is, and I get yanked up into this very very bright light. But when I arrived in the spaceship, the aliens (looking just like the ones in the movies, little skinny greenish-white beings with big black eyes) didn’t know what to do with me. They just stood around and tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t understand them.

I’m not sure how or why this happened, but I started teaching them how to do the Funky Chicken. (They were hopeless students, by the way, all flailing arms and legs and no rhythm. Worse than Elaine off Seinfeld. LOL) And after we had finally successfully danced for a while, they let me go, and I woke up.

…Yeah, I have NO idea. But it did give me a good laugh upon waking! 😛

Getting Interviewed for Books I Ain’t Written Yet

A few months back, I dreamed I was on a talk show that seemed like a combination of Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose, and North Carolina Bookwatch–it was definitely a public-television talk show, but I didn’t recognize the well-dressed older man that was the host, nor did I recognize the name of the show (which I promptly forgot after I woke up).

The host asked me about my novel SERIES (mind, my first novel isn’t even complete yet as of right now), and he asked me to answer critics’ comments about some of the harder truths I had depicted in my novels. I spoke from a literary-critic point of view myself, and talked about trying to capture some of what had gone on in real-world historical events within my fictional world.

After I had finished answering the questions, the host said he was really pleased with how I was willing to dissect my own books, and that he appreciated writers who took time to research to make a good book. Afterward, I went to a random book-signing outside the studio, and there were TONS of fans there–some were even dressed up like my main character! :O I woke up right in the middle of the book-signing, and for a few minutes I was thinking I had to get to another interview. LOL

The Random Rock Concert In the Middle of a Choral Concert

I dreamed a few nights ago about singing with my local Choral Society group. In the middle of the applause from the formal, sacred music we had just finished singing, our fairly straightlaced choral director turned around where he stood at the podium, as if to acknowledge the audience. But instead, he suddenly broke into the chorus of “Come On Feel The Noize” by Quiet Riot, headbanging and fist-pumping like the best 80’s hair band singer.

We, the choir, stood there kinda shocked for a few seconds, and then we randomly joined in singing with him. The audience went absolutely NUTS, jumping out of their seats, screaming and cheering, and forming a mosh pit below the sedately decorated stage. To add to the mood, somebody in the sound and light booth turned down the stage lights and turned on these lights that threw sparkling multicolored dashes of light all around the walls. And once we got done singing it once, we started it again–all a cappella, no instruments or anything. Random party in my head! (and yes, I did wake up headbanging along to it. XD)

And Finally: My Son (Who Isn’t Even Thought Of Yet) Walks to Daddy

(This one made me cry happy tears upon waking.)

I dream I am standing at a living room window, watching a few cars drive into the driveway, and I feel a little tug at my shirt hem. “Mommy, they here yet? They here yet?” says a little voice.

I lean down to this little boy–he’s about two–and say, “Yeah, they just came in. Want to go open the door for them?”

“Naaah,” he says, hugging my leg. He is suddenly very, very shy. I go over and open the front door, and several close friends come in, all excited to meet this little boy, who I now realize (within the dream) is my son. Even my boyfriend’s older brother comes to see him, and they all gather in the living room, wanting my son to show them how he’s learned to walk. But he won’t walk in front of them–he’s shy and a little nervous.

This whole time, I’m seeing how much he resembles my boyfriend–same dark, glossy hair, same facial structure, and same skinny little arms and legs. He’s so fragile-looking that I’m suddenly afraid to let him walk on his own, for fear he’ll fall and hurt himself. And while I’m pondering all this, our friends are encouraging him to walk over to them, and he keeps shaking his head…until he looks toward the kitchen doorway. His eyes light up, and he says, definitively, “DADA!”

Then, with very deliberate, slow steps, my son walks straight towards the kitchen doorway, straight toward my boyfriend, and hugs his leg as if he’ll never let his daddy go. My boyfriend sweeps him up into his arms, a loving smile lighting his face, and the likeness between father and son is uncanny–tears fill my eyes. Then, my little boy looks back toward the roomful of people (including me) and grins this really big, cheesy grin; it’s the first smile he’s given that reminds me of myself, and the dream ends there.

The Role of Good Dreams

Each of these dreams left me pumped, in a good mood, and ready to face the day, much more so than my nightmares. My nightmares just propelled me out of bed; my awesome dreams left me feeling so much more positive about my life. I think that’s one reason we have dreams like these–keep us happy and wanting to wake up and live again. At least, that’s what these five dreams (as well as all the other great ones I’ve had over the years) have done for me.

Have You Ever Had Dreams Like These?

Just wondering if these dreams of mine remind you of any you’ve had. Leave me a comment and tell me! 🙂

Monday in the HTMLab

When and How to Use a Horizontal Drop-Down Menu

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Before beginning this post, I thought I’d be all smart and helpful and write a tutorial on how to do a horizontal drop-down menu using CSS. That was before I Googled how to do it, and discovered that no less than five people had beaten me to the punch. 😀

I linked to those five tutorials (at the end of this article), and took a new tack: WHEN and HOW to use such a design. As with all styles of design, there are times where such a menu is appropriate and times where it completely breaks the look and functionality of your whole page.

Why Use a Horizontal Drop-Down Menu?

If you’re considering using a menu like this, you probably want to condense and simplify your navigation, or you want to use your sidebar space for something other than navigation (like ads, links, recent posts lists, etc.). Both are worthy goals–using as much screen space as you can closer to the top of your page ensures that more content can be displayed “above the fold,” so that the user does not have to scroll down.

Also, horizontal drop-down menus are great for decluttering a website’s look–somehow, it adds a sleekness that vertical navigation just never gives. If you’re looking for ways to neaten up the appearance of your site, such a menu design could be the very thing you need. And of course, if you already have a simple navigation (just a few pages in a couple of categories), then this look is perfect for your site.

When to Keep Away from This Menu Style

Just because you CAN do a horizontal menu with drop-down space doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

If you have just a few categories with lots of links in each one, you should not use this style–it will make your drop-down menu way too big and clunky on your page.

Also, if you have content high up on your page that you don’t want covered up at all (like sidebar widgets or important updates), I’d advise against this style, because your users will automatically be drawn to the menu and may never see your content.

How to Implement a Horizontal Menu Beautifully

  • Make your categories many and your links within each category few, so that your menu displays in a compact fashion.
  • Choose an easily-readable medium text size for your menu options (12-14 pixels for most fonts).
  • Make sure your link color and the menu’s background color are different enough from each other to be readable.
  • Don’t go crazy with link animations or graphics in your drop-down menu–just text links that match the colors of your site will be much more professional and usable.

Four Visual Degrees of Drop-Down Menus: From Worst to Best


#4. Not only is this menu HUGE, covering up much of the page underneath it, but its links are formatted in this weird, widely-spaced, almost tabular layout. It is visually confusing–everything looks the same, and it’s scattered all over the place.


#3. This menu is a little bit better–it’s big but doesn’t cover up the whole page underneath it. But its text formatting is strange; why all the space between each item, and why such huge font? Plus, the two top categories in bold are a bit vaguely worded, which means no one is going to click on them.


#2. This menu is more compact, with manageable font size and spacing, and a simple two-column link layout. But it still feels a bit “busy” with links.


#1. We have a winner! This menu is very compact, yet has big enough font size to read. Plus, it’s got high-contrast colors between the background and text colors, and its links are sorted alphabetically. Makes it very, very easy to find what you want, which is the point when designing a good navigation menu of any sort.

Learn How to Code and Design This Menu Type

AListApart (basics)
Onextrapixel (combines HTML, CSS, and JQuery)
CSSNewbie (VERY easy to understand–even I got it!)
Sperling.com (a little more jargon-heavy, but still a good reference)
MyCSSMenu (if you don’t want to fool with the code)

Saturday with the Spark

The Creativity Leak: Fatigue

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My novel, unfortunately, has come to a standstill, and not because I’m out of ideas. It’s because of a slow leak in my brain called fatigue.

Well, Isn’t “Fatigue” Just Being Tired?

Not necessarily. I used to think fatigue just meant I wasn’t sleeping well enough, but I have come to understand how wrong that viewpoint is.

Fatigue doesn’t just make you sleepy. In fact, it can make you the opposite of sleepy–you can end up so tired you can’t sleep, so used to the flow of adrenalin keeping you going that your body can’t relax enough to sleep.

Fatigue also takes away your energy to think and do things. You feel about 50% alive at all times, as if the other 50% of you is still in bed, and your thought processes are noticeably slower and less fleshed-out. There’s tons of stuff you want to do, tons of stuff you need to do…but even just thinking about it all makes you more tired.

This is what I’ve been suffering for the last few weeks, and my overall creativity has really taken a hit. Aside from time spent at the keyboard, I haven’t done much creative work except these Saturday blog posts (which, admittedly, have been much harder to come up with because of fatigue). And it’s not for lack of wanting to create–I just end up feeling too tired to deal with it.

This kind of tiredness, as I’ve found, leads to frustrated creative desire…and can leave you feeling painfully unfulfilled in your creative life.

Getting Rid of Fatigue So You Can Be Your Creative Self Again

This is as much for me as it is for y’all–I need this advice, too!

First, don’t fight fatigue with forced energy.. Pushing on through and trying to force creativity will only render an inferior product. You’ll be unhappy with what you’ve done, and you won’t want to try again for fear of the same terrible results. (See: my failed attempts at writing a “really good” song, leading to the fear that I’d “lost my gift.”)

Second, uncover the cause of your fatigue. It could be a chemical imbalance, a minor illness that just won’t go away, a vitamin deficiency, job stress, or even just a simple lack of GOOD sleep. Explore all these causes, and truly listen to your body.

In my case, I’ve had a cold and sore-throat bug that has been ongoing for several weeks, and the resulting fatigue left me nearly unable to write anything creative. How I’ve been able to come up with blog posts consistently is beyond me–I guess it is a labor of love. LOL

(I also must warn you to get checked out by the doctor if at-home treatments like vitamin capsules and meditation do not work for you. Fatigue can be a symptom of something worse going on. 🙁 )

Third, allow your energy to come back slowly. Don’t expect to feel absolutely AMAZING the day after you’ve figured out what’s wrong and started treating it. It will take a few days for your body to get back on the energy train, and possibly even longer for your brain to get back its precious creative juices.

Right now, for instance, I’m using these creative Saturday posts to get back my own creative juices. I know the ideas for my novel are up there, but I can’t pressure them to come out–it’s like pressuring a souffle to cook. If you rush it, it deflates. So I have to be okay with what I can do now, and look forward to getting back on the ball.

Fourth and finally, celebrate your efforts, however small they might look. Right now, I’d be glad if I could write 50 words in my novel; that’s how bad my fatigue has been. If I can muster the mental energy to do it, I will be as happy as if I’d written 5,000.

Similarly, you can’t be upset with yourself if you don’t snap back to epic creativity right away. Be glad for the little, itty-bitty victories. If you let yourself celebrate those, you’ll have a more positive frame of mind and thus set yourself up for bigger and bigger victories.

With this good advice in mind (I’m like Alice in Wonderland, I guess–“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it”, lol), I hope I’ll be back to writing my novel very, very soon. I hope, if you’re feeling a little tired and out of creative energy, that this helps you get back in your game, too. 🙂

Friday around the Web

Creative Writing Exercises, CakeWrecks, Dubstep Dancer, and Internet Suffixes

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Exercises for Creative Writers
Want to try your hand at creative writing, or get back into practice? These exercises will help you! (I like the exercise in which two characters each have a secret, but neither the readers nor the other character ever finds out what it is.)

CakeWrecks.com
This just proves that when you order a cake from the bakery, you’re never assured of the quality you’ll get…but you might be in for a laugh!

Dubstep Dancer Gets It Right
Um, wow, this guy either broke all his bones to dance like this, or he has joints I’ve never heard of. WOW

Internet Suffixes
A list of all the possible domain suffixes you could get–great for creating full domain names that spell something, like del.icio.us used to spell.

Thursday in the Zone

Bruce Wayne Rocks!

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A couple of weeks ago, I did an article about all the Alter Ego figures available in HeroClix to date. What I didn’t share with you is just how much utility you can get out of one of the figures in particular: Bruce Wayne, alter ego of Batman, from the HeroClix set Brave and the Bold.

Why Does He Rock?

Low Point Cost

He is 48 points, which in the current Modern Age environment is fairly cheap. He’s also fairly cheap considering Golden Age pieces of a similar type. It’s not easy to get an Outwit piece that can defend itself under 50 points.

Excellent Unmodified Combat Values

10 attack and 17 defense are both highly valuable in any Clix environment these days. This makes Bruce Wayne not only an inexpensive figure to run on a team, but an inexpensive figure that can hold his own, whether that’s deflecting a hit or making an attack of his own.

Useful Combat Abilities

Though he has no natural attack or speed powers, his Combat Reflexes and Outwit make him eminently playable. Outwit makes him useful for taking down overpowered beatsticks; Combat Reflexes protects him even more against close combat attacks.

Good Keywords

For Clix players who like to use keywords to build theme teams, Bruce Wayne gives you Outwit, Combat Reflexes, 10 attack and 17 defense for Celebrity, Gotham City, and Trinity teams. (Gotham City teams already have their fair share of options of Outwit and 10 attack, but Celebrity and Trinity teams can benefit greatly.)

Drawbacks

He has no range and no team symbol (not even Batman-Ally). Nor does he live very long–if he takes 4 damage, he’s out of the game. Plus, he has lower movement than some would like.

…But come on, he’s the Batman! Who cares whether he has range or not, or has a long dial. For 48 points, he’s one of the best cheap sources of combat-ready Outwit in the game.

If you don’t have a good source of cheap Outwit in your Clix box already, I definitely recommend this Alter Ego piece for your collection. You might scoff–but then again, you might laugh when Bruce Wayne makes it possible to hit Superman for 5 damage. 🙂

Wednesday in the Word

God’s Promise and Our Promise

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Isaiah 1:18-19

18 “Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. 19 If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land.”

In this, one of the first verses in the Book of Isaiah (otherwise full of hard-hitting, prophetic verses that the Israelites needed to hear), Isaiah quotes God promising forgiveness. Though our sins might be as plain and as staining as scarlet blood on our hands, that stain can yet be cleansed by forgiveness.

But that promise is not automatically given to all. It is given pending our personal willingness to follow God’s will. The “if you are willing and obedient” part is the key line here; in order to accept God’s promise of forgiveness, we must promise similarly to God that we are ready for forgiveness and the obedience to His will that it entails.

God does not force Himself in where He is not wanted; we have free will. We can choose to accept God or not–it’s a personal decision, and cannot be forced by another person or an institution. But if we want salvation, if we want to be cleansed from the sins that we’ve committed, God stands ready to forgive us. We just have to make that promise of obedience.

Obedience to God Is Not Burdensome

Now, living obedient to God’s will is not easy, but it’s not a total drag, either. I can say that I’m living a much happier and more fulfilling life these days, because I FEEL the forgiveness in my heart and I FEEL my relationship with God growing stronger. It is like having the very best, closest friend in the world, multiplied ten times over.

And yet, it is also like having an awesome Parent who has a few “house rules.” Following those “house rules” yields harmony; breaking one or more of those rules leads to distress. It may be difficult to follow these rules at times, but I know the reward if I do.

God wants to forgive each of us, wants to reconnect with us–that’s why Isaiah writes of God saying “Come now, let us reason together.” That’s the beauty of His promise: He’s done the hard work for us, with the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, as the atonement for our sins. All that remains now is to accept that gift, and fulfill that promise.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Battle of the Beauty Purge, Completed

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Last week I wrote about my massive beauty-product purge, ranging from shampoos and conditioners to lipstick and fragrance and everything in between.

This week, I will show you the fruits of that (very very hard) labor, in the form of a much nicer bathroom. Not just showing makeup products, but ALL of the products I reduced and condensed, and the total effect that had on my bathroom.

What Remained After the Purge

Makeup

About four years ago, I quit wearing full-face makeup all the time. Not coincidentally, I started dating my awesome boyfriend of win around that time–as we got to know each other, I found myself not feeling the need to wear much makeup around him, because he was always so positive about my appearance. When we purged the bathroom, I realized I didn’t need all the random makeup I was hoarding; either it was out-of-date, the wrong colors, or it just wasn’t necessary anymore. Thus, my collection was edited waaaaay down, into what you see below.


Clockwise from top left: New York Color Color Wheel Mosaic Powders in Translucent Highlighter Glow (top left) and Pink Cheek Glow (top right); E.L.F. Bronzer in Sun Kissed; Clinique Superpowder Double Face Makeup in Matte Ivory

True story–these four products are all that I use for face makeup these days. (Concealer has either never worked right or I never learned how to apply it without it looking blotchy and fake, so I don’t bother buying it anymore. And I find that the Superpowder does a fair job of covering most flaws anyway. ^_^) The bronzer, blush, and translucent powder over top gives me a naturally-finished look without taking too long.


From left: Revlon Illuminance Creme Shadow in Precious Metals; New York Color Metro Quarter Eye Shadow in South Street Seaport; CoverGirl Eye Enhancers in Drama Eyes #222 (left) and Tropical Fusion* #205 (right). Eye pencil (between the eye palettes) is New York Color Kohl Brow/Eyeliner Pencil in Jet Black.
*unsure of exact product name

Just these four eye palettes make it possible to mix nearly any color I want without having to buy every single shade. I can make a dark green, for instance, by taking the teal shade and adding a little black and a little brown; I can make a light purple by mixing the dark burgundy, the dark blue, and a little white. And, of course, they are all lovely shades to wear on their own. (The cream shadows, at far left, are great highlighters or bases, depending on what I need–they show up darker in this picture than they really are.)


From left: CoverGirl Wetslicks in Shimmershell; L.A. Colors Glossy Lips in Jammin’ Jelly; Neutrogena MoistureShine glosses in Healthy Blush (left) and Berry (right); New York Color lipstick in Ruby #305; Beauty Innovations lip palette, unknown name.

I reduced my lip makeup collection SEVERELY. These are all the lipsticks I own now, and they, like the eye products, can be mixed together to get the precise shade I’m after. I prefer glossier/smoother textures, and so most of my collection focuses around that.

The Glossy Lips gloss (second from left) is not really that dark, by the way–see it in the light, below:

Bath Products


From nearly a tubful of bottles, we shrunk my impressive shampoo collection down to this small drawer; we got rid of at least 150 shampoo bottles to condense it down to what I really use and like. I’ve got four basic formulas I like: light conditioning, heavy conditioning, super-cleansing, and volumizing. Thus, each of the bottles in this drawer does one of the four functions.


Since I hate having the “extra step” of conditioning in the shower every day, I have considerably fewer conditioners. Most of these conditioners match a super-cleansing or light conditioning shampoo.


I kid you not, we got rid of over 50 different shower gel bottles, and now I have room to spare in this little drawer. I generally like clearer, less-creamy shower gels with light fragrances, so that’s largely what my small collection is about. (I’m also in the process of phasing out shower gels in favor of scented bar soaps, which last longer and are cheaper.)

Fragrances


Okay, okay, I admit it, I like body sprays and scented stuff. And maaaaaybe I could stand to reduce this just a touch more. But considering that we hauled out 2 big black trash bags full of nothing but old perfume bottles… 🙂


I had been storing my sprays and lotions alongside my shower gels in that little drawer. But the drawer was way too small to hold all that awesome in it, and I was always forgetting to use the sprays because they were hidden away. Thus, I got this white-painted metal spice rack from Walmart for about 10 bucks, to create a “fragrance display” in my bathroom.


See? Looks a lot better than them just sitting out on the counter in a big conglomerate mess. (Oh, and the sprig of blue flowers beside them is there just ’cause it’s pretty. ^o^)

Hair Notions and Jewelry

I usually have longer hair most of the time, so I have tons of scrunchies, clips, and smooth bands to craft it into “cool hair,” as my boyfriend describes it. But in order to get my collection into a more manageable size, I had to edit and toss a bunch of stuff.


This is my much-reduced selection of bigger hair notions–I used to have about 3,000 of those big hair clips back in the day. LOL…


…but I still have a ton of little hair notions in the form of tiny clips and bands. What can I say, it’s a work in progress!


And these are all the smaller scrunchies that wouldn’t fit on my big ole scrunchie rack.

“Scrunchie rack?” you say. “What’s a scrunchie rack?”

THIS:


It was a hand-towel rack. I saw the unique, flattened “S” shape of the rack, below…


…and I thought, “Hey, I think I could thread my scrunchies onto that.” So I repurposed it…


…like so. It might look like a confusion of fabric (and it kinda is), but there’s organization there. Now I can see all the scrunchies at once and pick one off fairly easily.

Speaking of racks, here’s the slightly-Asian-inspired jewelry rack I picked up on clearance from Walmart:


Where once my jewelry was in scattered bags all over the house, now it has a permanent (and pretty) home in the bathroom, safely away from hungry sink drains. Awwwh yeah.

Other Items

When I said my boyfriend and I cleaned the bathroom, we cleaned out EVERYTHING and made space for EVERYTHING that was left. Like my soap/razors/hair products drawer:


Uh, yeah, this is slightly still a work in progress. But at least I always know where the soap is now, instead of having to dig through 4 cabinets and 2 drawers!


That’s right, I dedicated a whole bathroom drawer to brushes. And yes, I do use every single one of them, depending on styling needs. No more knocking stuff off the cabinet tops to find that one stinkin’ brush that’s hiding from me!


And because I had no set place for my toothbrushes, cough drops, bandages, etc, I dedicated the drawer on the other side of the sink to hold such supplies. It’s the unofficial “medicine cabinet.” (And yes, I regularly need that many Band-Aids. I am one of the clumsiest, most accident-prone people ever. The first-aid companies <3 me.)

The Proudest Achievement: Organization in the Bathroom

First off, this thing rocks my socks.

It only stands about a foot or so tall, but held within it is all my makeup (top two drawers) and most of my hair notions (bottom three drawers).


Face stuff (plus a few beauty tools)…


…and everything else makeup-y. See? It all fits!

Combine that with the awesomeness of the racks holding my jewelry, fragrances, and scrunchies, and you get this:

…I’m finally bathroom-proud. It may not be the best-looking, it may still be in progress, but I’m using the space a lot better than I ever did before.

And LOOK! I can see the color of the countertops!! That, in itself, is a massive achievement. 😀 😀 😀

Monday in the HTMLab

Font Series Wrapup: Fonts You Need for Your Toolbox

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As an ending to this series of font-tastic posts, I am recapping some of the best fonts I discovered while doing font research. The five I have chosen for today’s post are, in my opinion, the most usable and easily-read of all the fonts in each category I wrote about (fancy fonts, sans-serif/serif body fonts, bitmap fonts, and symbol fonts). I hope you find them as useful and awesome as I have–I’ve already downloaded them all for use in my future designs!

(By the way, I provide links back to the articles I wrote for each category, so it’s easy to check through the articles and see if you agree with my picks. 😀 )

Best Fonts from This Article Series

Best Bitmap Font:

Ernest
Why? Because it provides the smallest and yet most readable text for itty-bitty graphics. I’ve long used it for link buttons, but it has a variety of uses around a website.
Best Symbol Font:

CD-Icons
Why? Because it has a ton of symbols–even symbols for special characters, like accented E’s, etc. It literally has a symbol for every character you can think of, and they are all useful in an icon-based design.
Best Fancy Font:

Dhe Mysterious
Why? Because it has a well-defined character set, and yet it has a beautiful wispy quality to it too…strong but soft. Great for titles and headings, but not too bold.
Best Sans-Serif Body Font:

Alido
Why? Because it’s not Arial, Verdana, or Helvetica, but it is still legible–it’s different without being tiring on the eyes after reading a page or two written in it.
Best Serif Body Font:

Timeless
Why? Graceful without being overpowering–and again, it looks different enough from Georgia, Garamond, and Times New Roman.

Summary

Fonts are, for me, one of the most important parts of web design, because a good font choice means that people can read your content (what they came for). Making a website beautiful AND easy to use/read is what webdesigners are all about, after all!

I hope that this font article series has helped you discover new fonts for your own site designs. It certainly has been fun for me to review all these different fonts (and find new favorites)!

Saturday with the Spark

Desktop Art: Wallpapers

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As long as I’ve had a computer of my own (which was when I started college), I’ve had the urge to design backgrounds for my desktop. In a way, it was part of creating art for me–I wasn’t particularly good at drawing, wasn’t particularly good at coloring, but I did seem to be good at making desktop wallpapers.

Unfortunately, most of the wallpapers I’ve created over the last few years are locked on a hard drive that may or may not be recoverable :(, but I can share with you the few that I uploaded to my deviantArt account many moons ago. I can also give you a few tips on creating a desktop wallpaper that will be a delight to your eyes.

Picking the Desktop Style that’s Right for You

What you like as a wallpaper varies greatly, depending on what you need your desktop to do. I know plenty of people who cover their whole desktop with icons for files; I myself prefer a desktop uncluttered with icons (regardless of how my physical room looks…*snicker*). Other people have hyper-organized desktops with tons of informational widgets and gadgets all over the place, from daily calendars to how hot the CPU is getting, and so forth.

I’d say that your desktop should represent you, and should also be functionally beautiful for what you need. In the next few examples, I’ll show you various ways of organizing as well as decorating your desktop wallpaper.

Make it Expansive and Gorgeous

A wide, panoramic shot is great for a large-picture desktop; I favor nature pictures for these, and I try to make them as uncluttered as possible, with very few desktop widgets or gadgets. Any picture with a broad view, lots of color, or an amazing light effect works great for desktops.


A Beautifully-Colored Sunset

This is a photo I took with my cell phone camera; I used it for several months as a desktop image, though I don’t have the actual desktop screenshot available. I loved the colors and plays of light and shadow in the picture, and so I fought to keep my desktop as clear as possible for this picture–I think I only had four icons on my desktop the whole time I used this picture. GASP!

A Desktop’s Not Just for Pictures

I like to include verses of poetry or quotes on my desktops, along with pictures or images. Usually I come up with my own poetry or quotes in direct response to what the image evokes in me; sometimes, though, I’ll mix my own words with someone else’s on the same desktop if I want a variegated desktop.

For these two screenshots, I show how I organize my desktop differently depending on my needs for that span of time.


Desktop January ’07 to March ’07

During the time this screenshot was up, I needed a constant HTML to-do list up on my desktop–thus, the large black area on the left, balancing the image (Sustaining Spirit, by Rebecca Guay) and my poetry on the right. (Had to motivate myself to do my homework somehow! I miss that functionality of Windows XP, to put an HTML page directly on the desktop…)


Desktop September ’06 to January ’07

For this desktop, I didn’t need a to-do list, so I just kept all the icons to a minimum and let the background speak for itself, with self-created poetry and a lovely image for which I cannot remember the source.

Make It Look Like a Scrapbook of Your Life

To create a “scrapbook” look, I’ll often put several pictures on a plain or subtly-patterned backdrop, arranging them so they look either neat or haphazard, either all together or spread out across the page. I find this to be an inspiring and fun background style to use on a daily basis–gives a little “oomph” to a bad day!


Desktop June ’08

During this time, I was away from home and was very homesick, especially being away from awesome boyfriend of win, so I created this bulletin-board-like desktop with five real pictures, including a picture of us together. ^_^ I also had Vista’s Sidebar active (on the right, with some gadgetry in it), so I made sure the background did not compete with the Sidebar, nor did the icons on the left.

(Also, this was the infamous desktop that one of my classmates saw and asked, “Aww, is that your boyfriend? How many years younger is he?” I replied, “I’m twenty-FOUR and he’s twenty-NINE.” LOL)

Designing a Desktop of Your Own

To try out some of your own desktop art, pull out a few personally-meaningful photos, find some lovely patterns and images online (or make some yourself if you like), and start working. Play around in your favorite image-creation software or online image-manipulation site (like Pixlr or Aviary); arrange the photos and images any which way, add text if you want, and splash color all over it. It’s your desktop, after all–try everything and see what works best.

A few guidelines and tips for this process:

  • Check out your monitor’s screen resolution settings before you design, and make sure your image is as close in size to the resolution as possible. For many of my old desktops, I designed for a 1024 x 768 resolution; later, I had to design for a 1300 x 1050 resolution (I think), and so on.
  • Remember that the desktop background will likely be stretched a little bit to fit your screen if it’s not the same size as your monitor. Keep this in mind when selecting images, especially big images–you might end up with a funhouse-mirror photo!
  • Know where you’d like to put your icons and desktop widgets before you start designing your background. In my June ’08 desktop, I knew that I wanted Vista’s Sidebar to display on the right, so I offset the pictures left of true center so that the pictures wouldn’t be shadowed.
  • Try out “framing” your pictures in colorful patterns and shapes, and play with drop shadows and blur effects. These all seem to work well in a desktop setting.

Summary

Making wallpapers into “desktop art” can be an easier and more accessible way to involve creativity in your life. If you’ve never tried it, I encourage you to do so–who knows, you might make something truly inspirational!

Friday around the Web

Dumpster House, Cats’ House, Mixes and Mashups, and Body Clock

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This Guy LITERALLY Made a Dumpster into a House
Talk about recycling!!!

The Cats’ House
A complete virtual tour of a house built for felines to enjoy (and take advantage of, lol).

Mixes and Mashups @ Soundcloud.com
Amazing combinations of songs–who knew that the Beatles, Green Day, and the Jackson Five would mesh together in song like this? LOL!

Body Clock
It’s a Flash body clock. Except it’s probably not exactly what you’re thinking of. (Click to see the awesome)