pixelatedjunkies

Customizing Facebook and WordPress

I’ve learned a lot this past week (mostly during the all-nighter I had with my fellow admin on Saturday to be accurate) about creating templates for WordPress. It is not as daunting as I originally thought, but it definitely takes an eye for detail and lots. of. coffee.

Facebook is more frustrating, partly because they are brand aware enough to limit how much customization they allow. I can’t be upset about that though as I respect these boundaries and very much agree with their strategy (which in a nutshell I believe is to slowly take over the world and then find a way to suddenly charge everyone for it). After all, the fb phenomenon has lasted much longer than the myspace buzz. Why? Because myspace was the gateway drug and fb is the intervention-worthy ensuing addiction. I think deep down myspace incited those social networking endorphins but there was too much freedom, too much variety. That gets old because people in general do not have fine tuned design sensibilities so most of the pages were overloaded with nonsense. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but structure is the mother of true creativity.

Sooner than later I will be creating a new homepage for PJs as well as a fb fan page. Keep an eye out.

xo,
admin

InDesign, color schemes and stock photography…

InDesign master pages do not like tables. I tried creating a table that would house a publication’s name in one cell and the page number in the next cell but InDesign would NOT let me size the cell with the automatic text correctly. I finally gave up when it was corroborated by a good 10+ designers who agreed: InDesign hates tables on masters. In the process of trying to get it to work I learned a keyboard shortcut though – hitting ESC while in a cell will alternately highlight the text within it and the entire cell. BOOYAH.

I’m working on a project right now that has the most ridiculous list of criteria ever. It has to simultaneously be: A4 & Ltr size; formatted for screen, office printing and professional printing; have even margins with or without a bleed (which is actually physically impossible lol); and cook you breakfast. I’ve got everything down except the b@stard keeps burning my waffles.

A friend sent me this link that I thought you’d appreciate: http://colorschemedesigner.com/

screenshot

It is absolutely delicious, especially the monocolor schemes. I wish I had found this before I decorated my apartment!!

Another resource I think you will love is http://www.sxc.hu/ they have the best free stock photos I have ever seen on the web. Hope that helps!!

Lorem Ipsum and a whole lot more

I’ve been very much into photography lately. Hopefully I’ll have a few links up from some photographer friends of mine. In the meantime, there’s a great site that features NY Panorama shots, and I have been learning how to work on them myself. It’s really awesome.

http://newyorkpanorama.com

Apparently, it’s a very grueling process to learn and it requires a lot of camera equipment. I love the panoramas I’ve taken of some sites in Japan. One day I’ll host the link up for those photos. In the meantime, enjoy this photographer’s work and pay attention to his process. I guess my main concern is how to merge the photos together, but there’s a program for that. Enjoy.

Welcome to Pixelated Junkies!

Welcome to the all new pixelated junkies!! We’ve created this site for a few reasons:

1. We need a place to vent our design frustrations
2. We are tired of never finding exactly what resources we need as designers, and we thought you’d probably share the sentiment
3. We come across some pretty awesome things online every so often, both design related and not, and we want to pass on the love
4. WE ARE AWESOMELY AWESOME!

lol, ok so we hope that this blog helps you in some way…and if it does leave us love and tell us what you want to see more of (like tutorials, tips, social engineering, anime, whatever!) If it doesn’t help you GET OUT! >:O

xo,

your lovely admin