Slightly Askew

This site has an ultra simple look. But, even if I do say so myself, there are a few nice touches to the design of my beloved blog that you might not be aware of.

So in an effort to demonstrate I’m not completely stupid when it comes to all this design and development malarkey, I’ll be sharing a few things with you. (Sorry if you were expecting a sweary rant about some shitty customer services department; normal service will be resumed shortly.)

So here’s the first interesting thing about my blog: it aligns to a baseline grid.

Turn the grid on and off to see what I mean.

Nifty, eh?

All thanks to this article by Wilson Miner on A List Apart.

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Since you asked, I had two reasons for changing the look of my blog. In fact, I still have them. Here they are:

1. I got all up-my-own-arse-arty and decided that minimalism was like so progessive.

2. My blog was looking like I’d dressed it in one of those horrible WordPress themes that people submit for download in the hope they’ll get kudos (shit word) from the blogosphere (another shit word). It felt corporate and dirty. What lows would I stoop to next? AdSense? Fucking hell. So I slapped myself in the face, got rid of all the colours, and decided on Slightly Askew written in Georgia (a font that generates stiffies among male nerds because it looks so beautiful on a Mac) in a pretty shade of blue.

Hope you still like the words, even if you hate the design.

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Oh, thank you Delicious Industries. I owned that game. Actually, I did more than just own it. I played it with my family many, many times; it was a part of my childhood. I loved it.

We probably ended up selling it for 50p at a car boot sale down Portman Road on a chilly Sunday morning, but such is life.

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I got them from Moo. 50 of them in fact, and for a very reasonable price.

And Moo, bless them, describe business cards as greetings for meetings. Which I think is quite wonderful.

If I had any gripes, it would be that the quality of the printing on the front isn’t great. As you might be able to see, it looks slightly tired around the edges.

According to Stephen (who knows about these things) it’s because they use digital printing. Indeed, Wikipedia’s entry for digital printing tells us that:

The Ink or Toner does not absorb into the substrate, as does conventional ink, but forms a layer on the surface and may be fused to the substrate by using an inline fuser fluid with heat process(toner) or UV curing process(ink). 

So because the ink doesn’t absord into the card (or substrate, for you jargoneers) it can flake when the cards are cut.

Or something like that.

I don’t actually mind the effect. Each card looks like a well-read book. Which can’t be a bad thing for a writer.

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Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.

Wise words, I reckon.

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