Boblet Learned things and Japan diary, by Oli Studholme

Work ups & downs; Design

By Oli
At 11:36 PM · Thursday, 11 December · 2003
To Design · Diary

I’ve been having a fairly bad time on the design front recently. After a well received site for Mie University Center for International Students in July, I was hoping I would get more work from iBrain (like maybe redesigning their homepage ;-) Nothing has eventuated, although they’re now considering me for freelance print design work.

I’ve been trying to learn more and improve my skills in the down time, but recently I’ve been having ‘confidence’ issues. I design websites using Safari and Firebird (ie standards-compliant browsers) to preview my designs, and can write compliant code without too many problems. However I’ve been caught out rather severely by PC Internet Explorer several times recently with things like disappearing or cropped content, when all the Mac browsers I’ve checked on have been fine. The code is always technically correct, and the problem is always a nightmare to trouble-shoot as I lack easy access to PC IE myself. I’ve been wanting to create a testing setup, but have been putting it off — my present machine can’t handle that on top of design software. We’ve been planning to buy a new desktop (probably a Mac G5 1.8GHz, maybe a dual 1.8), but this has also been unexpectedly delayed. Another option is to buy a cheap PC for testing, but I don’t have enough money to buy two computers. I feel like I’m on the edge of getting my head around web design with CSS, if it wasn’t for the massive problems that keep cropping up :-)

On the up side I recently got a tentative freelance design request, which I should know more about in January. If it works out it could be the start of forming some partnerships with other web designers in Japan. I would love to develop a freelance business like this. I’ve also started getting to know some of the foreign web people working in Japan. I’ve even been trying to set up an email group with them, to tide me over until the Tokyo Designers Collective actually starts. It’s been great to get to know other people with the same interests in the same country ;-)

Apart from that, I’ve recently been making nengajō ・「年賀状」. Miwa’s parents asked me to make them one, and I’ve been having fun sketching various monkey interpretations. Of course they chose the conservative kanji-based one, but it was fun to do the whole design process thing with them. We’ve also had one printed via the photo store, a print run of 230 (!) It’s pretty funky, so if you get one we hope you like it!

My next major project is to finally fix up this weblog, and actually get some images and decent graphic design going on. While I’ve been able to justify it to myself this far as learning CSS, or learning MovableType, it’s just starting to annoy me now. ‘Promptings’ from my unsolicited-hinter-in-chief are also helping ;-) Hopefully the new year will bring a new computer, a new digital camera, a new setup and work flow, and a lot more Boblet love. That is, if I’m not working 12 hour days (!)