optimiced | en

After midnight:
1. Two double cups of coffee (sudden caffeine over-dosage!),
2. 4xdose of work (writing code) till 3-4 a.m.,
== you won’t be able to go to sleep till 5 a.m. (guaranteed!), you will turn in bed all night, plus (a bonus!) you probably will wake up at 7 a.m.!

In general:
1. no.mo.ney,
2. Lack of sleep, lack of rest,
== you look in the mirror reee-e-e-el bad!

These are my wise thoughts for the moment, this morning. :-)

Now it’s time to go stare at the screen again, I guess…

I rarely write about my freelance work, but I’d like to mention one of my latest projects — Festival Chairs (screenshot).

Last Wednesday the new (redesigned) version of the website (in Dutch language) went “live”:
www.festivalchairs.nl …and soon I hope to complete the English and French versions.

For the first time I launch a website, which uses the new HTML5 standard. Actually, all pages validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict, but at the last moment I decided to change the doctype and… they validated perfectly as HTML5! I did not use some of the new tags, such as <header>, <nav>, <footer> — I think it’s too early, because no version of IE (up to 8) does not support HTML5… So I actually wrote XHTML 1.0 Strict code, and then validated it both as XHTML 1.0 Strict and (later) as HTML5 ;)

The graphic design is made by www.digitalideas.nl. I created and optimized almost all of the code — HTML, CSS, JS and implementation of jQuery plugins, PHP, also editing and optimization of the original PSD files with Adobe Fireworks and export of the individual images/backgrounds in various formats… I think the final HTML code is quite beautiful (not that someone will look at the HTML/CSS, besides me;) …but the important thing is that it works pretty well — I tried to create as semantic and exact code as possible.

The website should look pretty organized even without CSS support. I also made some tests, how it will look with images disabled (but CSS enabled) — almost all of the content and navigation remain accessible, with a couple of minor exceptions. Without JavaScript everything should work well, too.

Before launching the site, I made sure to make a lot of tests in the following browsers: Firefox 3.5 3.6, IE 8, IE 7, Opera 10, Safari 4, Chrome 3 4, Safari 4; and in IE6, too (in IE6 almost everything works and looks OK, except for some GIFs which replaced the PNG32 alpha backgrounds in a few places).

I am quite happy with this project and the final results. Unfortunately (partially because of the strive for perfection from my part, as a coder and Web designer) the project needed much more time than initially planned, so I’ll have to be more exact next time, when I make estimates.

When I am ready with the EN/FR versions, I am not yet sure, what I will do next… maybe take some rest?

PS Forgot to tell that the clients (up to now) are quite happy with my CSS/XHTML expert work… ;)

(click the image to see in original size)

Meta info:
Software: Adobe Fireworks
Time: ~ 1 h
Idea/completed: 2010/Jan/22 @ 17:20

In the bathroom, we have a funny sponge which looks like a green frog. Well, today I decided to create the frog (sponge) in digital format, so here it is! And a dream coming through… for the frog, of course! ;)

(click the image to see in original size)

Meta info:
Software: Adobe Fireworks
Time: ~ 30 m
(2009/Jul/17, 2010/Jan/21 @ 23:58)

(click the image to see in original size)

Meta info:
Software: Adobe Fireworks
Time: ~ 30 m
Idea & completed: 2010/Jan/18 @ 18:00)

This is not only Ani’s idea, but this time, she also helped me perfection the illustration!

And now you can also see where’s the cat that said “Miaaaoou!” in the previous episode! ;-)

(click the image to see in original size)

Meta info:
Software: Adobe Fireworks
Time: ~ 15 m
Idea & completed: 2010/Jan/18 @ 14:30)

This is Ani’s idea, but I created the illustration all by myself! ;-)

(And if you wonder, where’s the cat that says “Miaaaoou!”… maybe you’ll see it on another illustration, one of these days!)

(click the image to see in original size)

Meta info:
Software: Adobe Fireworks
Time: ~ 5 m
Idea & completed: 2010/Jan/17 @ 18:00)

There, I said it! (idea) ;-)

PS The font used is the beautiful Consolas, which is my favourite font for creating/editing code.

(click the image to see in original size)

Meta info:
Software: Adobe Fireworks
Time: ~ 5 m
Idea: 2009/Aug/27 (finalized: 2010/Jan/17 @ 15:55)

Also a little bit like an extension to my previous illustration… :)

(click the image to see in original size)

Meta info:
Software: Adobe Fireworks
Time: ~ 15 m
Idea: 2009/Aug/26 (finalized: 2010/Jan/17 @ 15:55)

Inspired by Veerle, and created by me in Fireworks. I was planning to create some Fireworks tutorials on this subject, but for lack of time, the idea for now is held off…

(click the image to see in original size)

Meta info:
Software: Adobe Fireworks
Time: ~ 10 m
Idea: 2010/Jan/15

#000000 > #FFFFFF …