Here we go: I finished the new dress for this blog. It’s just the WordPress default theme with new graphics. I am not much of a graphic artist, but it’s good enough for now.

The hardest thing about amateur graphic design is to resist the PowerPoint effect. That’s what happens when the VP of Marketing has too much coffee and decides to use every single animated transition effect in Powerpoint for the next marketing strategy presentation. Push from left – wipe right -uncover from top – checkerboard, disolve, blinds vertical, wheel clockwise, …. or even worse: the random trasition setting. We have all seen those. They make me seasick.

Photoshop is equally seductive. I sit at the computer and get sweaty hands, thinking “must. resist. texture. effect.” My vision gets blurry, yellow spots dance on the computer screen, then I loose control of my mousepad … and apply …. a …. dropshadow!

With all the fancy, flashy features: textures, drop shadows, liquify, distort, noise, pixelate … I find it takes a lot of self-control not to go completely overboard on graphic effects. But especially for an amateur it is important to keep it simple. I did my best to resist.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 15th, 2005 at 12:23 pm and is filed under General, Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.