New Theme: Asian Style…

I haven’t had much personal time, hence my absence from blogging but yesterday I felt like taking a break from building websites and have some ‘me-time’. I’ve wanted to change the theme of my blog for a while but never took time to do it. I love theme design and the challenge is to make it work cross platform which most seem to forget about resulting in bad coding and/or design. But then again that’s what makes me stand out *ahem*.

I haven’t written much because I also have to admit that I’m feeling a bit down in the dumps lately. It’s not bad bad but I have lost a bit of zest, mainly because I’m dealing with a few problems. One is a major allergy that has been acting up for two months now causing inflammation. It stops me from running along the canal (workout) and at times even from socialising. I don’t want to go into details but my health is far from good at the moment.

I’m postponing seeing a doctor as usual because I know she will send me to a specialist at the hospital and I’ll end up fighting the symptoms again and not the cause which is typically a scientific and medical approach which I try to avoid if possible. But I have to admit I’m close to being desperate and I want this condition to end asap and the only way to do that is taking the medication they’ll prescribe which is hardcore unfortunately.

It’s a vicious circle; the condition keeps me from sleeping because of the inflammation and because I have no sleep, healing takes forever or the condition aggravates. Okay… enough of that… but it is the main reason for not having the zest to write. So yesterday when I decided to do something for me, I was basically giving myself a gift by taking a break from clients (I have another Flash website lined up from Scotland next week).

So… what do you think? I collect fruit stickers -don’t ask!- and was inspired by the simple design of one so I changed it into my own and that triggered the rest of it… I thought it would be nice to have a green phase for a while. It represents nature, renewal, balance, love, self-control, healing, emotional safety and is soothing… No wonder I chose these colours *wink*. And for the design freaks: all is done in Illustrator…

(ps: don’t forget to clear your browser cache and refresh a few times, it might act pesky on pc *of course* mixing old and new design *hehe*)

Mac Addict

I’d been planning on working on another website design this weekend but I’m forced to stay away from my beautiful G5 for a while. I absolutely dislike having to cut off the power cord cold turkey but I guess my body is warning me to take things slow. I’m having trouble focusing on the screen for three days in a row now.

My right eye has a disturbed vision that contains unformed black and white flashes like a cool artistic graphic moire trompe-l’œil. Unfortunately the immediate effect is not so cool and follows in the shape of an interesting migraine. It’s always amazing to see how life seems to catch up on you if you try to fool yourself into something.

The migraine is bad timing, I’d also planned to do a clean install on my Mac. It’s going to take me at least three days to install each application that I’m using. I’ve adjusted so many settings and prefs. Designed and added brush sets for Photoshop and Illustrator that I’ll need to import all of these again after the installation.

Something I never look forward to because I end up looking for stuff for days, screening all back-ups for brush sets, settings and preferences. Time that I need to use to design instead of getting my machine ready to work for me. But I have had a few kernels and crashes this month telling me that something needs to be done.

It has to wait for now though, I’m gonna quit the Mac addiction for the moment and try to give my eyes and head a welcome break… Let’s see how long I can keep it up *hehe*.

© Christoffel Pierson 1631-1714