New section

Posted in News & Updates.

Just a quick news update, I have added a new section to the website; the ‘Downloads‘ section. Do have a look, currently all that is there is a free WordPress theme, but hopefully I will be getting more up soon. This new section is also causing minor issues with my design, leading me to contemplate a redesign and a new layout… just a maybe though.

A decent downtime?

As some of you -if not all of you- will notice, there has been very little activity on the website recently and for this I apologize. I was pretty busy for quite a while there as I was in my last year of high school (yes, I am only young) and my final exams were approaching a lot quicker then I had initially anticipated and indeed hoped. But now with that shit out of the way (I sat my final exam day before yesterday) I have the time to actually do some work on this website (and other projects). So, expect more. And more importantly, expect better. I had pretty good feedback from the articles I posted previously and I hope to only better the standard. This should be helped a lot by a few key factors;

  1. For starters, now that I have graduated high school, the next stop is university where I will be studying, you guessed it, graphic design (visual communication to be a little more specific).
  2. I now have the time to work on more design projects and templates which will be for both personal gain and profit.
  3. I should (if all goes well) be starting a job in January designing for a local magazine.
Due to these factors I will be far more submerged into the design world and community then I already am and will be able to gain experiences that will hopefully greatly improve the article quality, and frequency. It also means I will be learning new skills which could be useful for tutorials. Fingers crossed.
I will now go away and have a sit down and start running some ideas for articles and see if I can crap out anything worth pursuing, if so, expect some articles in the very near future. If not… hopefully the same will apply :P.

Design Update

Posted in News & Updates.

Ok, as I may or may not have mentioned, the previous design which lasted about a week was only intended to last that long. It was bland, boring, and pretty colourless. So over the last few days I have been working on this, and I am proud to say that it has been released. And yes, it has more fancy features;

  • Firstly, the link when you click on the comment count from the front page of the website or a category page will not take you to the comments, as intended.
  • Beneath every post is a ‘More’ section with features for readers to share the posts, as well as stay up to date with them. Please, if you feel an article is worthy of being shared, do so. It can be immeasurably beneficial to the development of a new website such as this.
  • My comments are now blue, so it is easier to see my replies. This is a feature that was mainly put in for the sake of tutorials so that users can find my posts easier should they be looking for support with the tutorial that may already be covered in discussion.
Don’t be surprised if you see ongoing tweaks either. I don’t expect there should be many, but the sidebar and footer in particular I feel need a bit more work to come.
Anyway, tell me how you feel about the new design in comparison to the last? I personally think its kick ass compared to the last, but hey, its my work :P.

Again? Are you serious…

Welcome to v14 of Designkai.com!

To anyone who is a regular here, they will most likely be confused as v13 was only released a very short time ago and was only up for maybe… a fortnight or so. This was because the database was having apparently irreparable issues with content and comments so I decided I would take it down and re-content it from scratch. However, while it was down I began thinking (thats never a good thing). Anyone who has visited Designkai previous to this version will be aware that it also included a portfolio and blog for myself, and was essentially a website about myself and things I enjoyed talking about, which was more or less shit. In my mind, this was very unprofessional, so I decided to make a drastic change. For the first time, Designkai would no longer serve as a portfolio for me. Ever again. I decided I would split my portfolio into a separate website which is completely stand-alone as just a portfolio. This should be running soon.

However, during this drastic overhaul I figured it would be worthy to re-build the way Designkai handles and presents content. The new Designkai, as of now, will serve as more of a resource/article website for designers or people who like to read the ranting of a madman often bored. But don’t get my wrong, I don’t intend to keep it as just me writing, hint hint. So what will be the benefits of the new Designkai? Lets have a look shall we;

  • More interesting articles - they will now have a point, they will now make a point and they will now hopefully fill a small void of information as well as provide an informative and hopefully useful view on the world, although generally restricted to the world that is the internet.
  • More structure - yes, much more. The articles will be researched, thought out and drafted to hopefully avoid the general bullshit that previous versions of Designkai was oh-so-good at pumping out.
  • And finally, more useful - I can only hope. My aim is to provide you with the information you were looking for, and if you weren’t looking for anything, provide you with an interesting read.
Oh, and there is ad’s for the first time on Designkai. These things happen, running a website does indeed cost money and it would be nice to have some funding to help with that without causing an inconvenience to the users by requesting any form of payment from them.
So what should you expect overall from the new Designkai? Content worth reading. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Designkai will ever see an end to the verbal, highly metaphorical feces, because lets face it, it can be amusing, however there will be a lot less because Designkai.com is now catered for the the reader, rather then its admins.