Fourth of July Sale

Now through July 4, all design services are 10 percent off. As long as you place your order by 11:59 pm EST on July 4, I will honor the lower price, even if I don't begin your design until after the 4th. To place your order, all you have to do is fill out the design questionnaire and pay the invoice when sent.

By the way, I have put the premade designs on hold for a bit so I can play around with Wordpress and see if I want to add those types of designs to my services. I will hopefully let you know whether I intend to before the sale ends.

Just Bloggled Gets a Summer Makeover

Since I haven't had any clients in weeks, I decided to give my own blog a summer makeover. Here is the before shot, which has more of a fall-type color scheme:



Here is the after shot:



The girl and the flowered background are are stock vectors, but everything else is handdrawn. I had been seeing a lot of designs, mostly Wordpress ones, that had a social icon box that spanned the two sidebars. After a little research, I figured out how to do it to my own template. I may add a second box like it for ad space (the boxes that say "your ad here") some time in the future. I spent hours trying to get the sidebars to be equal length, but because of the social icon box, any faux columns I added showed behind the social icon box as well. I'm okay with it though. I've had equal columns for so long I kind of like that these can change.

My queue is currently empty if anyone else is ready to give their blog a summer makeover. Just fill out my design questionnaire to get the process started.

Premade Design: Woman with Laptop

I have deleted these designs, as I wasn't happy with the way they looked. I will repost them once I am satisfied with them.

Premade Design: Guy with Laptop

I wasn't happy with these designs either and have thus deleted them. I will repost them once I make them look better.

Premades Hopefully Coming This Week or Next

Absent anything nuts happening this week, I plan on working on job apps during the day and a few premade designs at night, for those of you who would prefer a premade to a custom job. The premades will be listed at a lower price than the comparable custom package. I don't know how fancy they will be yet. For instance, I don't know if I'm going to include things like sidebar titles or buttons. If I do, I will be glad to add the title of your blog and the title of each sidebar element to the premade design at no extra cost. I will also install it for you for free. However, any major changes to the design will be subject to an agreed upon price.

I will let you know when I have some posted to the premade page. I may also showcase them in a blog post as well.

Some Slight Changes to My Policies

Effectively immediately, I will no longer take any orders via the Contact form or directly via my or my blog's email addresses. I will answer any questions you have about placing an order that way, but the order process will not formally take place until you have filled out the Questionnaire and agreed to my Terms of Service.

Please take a look at the Terms of Service page before placing an order or asking me questions, especially those parts involving payment, when I start working on your design, and my reservation of the right to charge more should your requested revisions become excessive. If you need an example of what I would consider excessive versus not excessive, not excessive would be choosing from a handful of fonts that I show you or asking me to change a font a couple of times. Excessive would be making me go through 30 fonts or more and still not finding one you like or having me spend two days on fonts alone.

One more request. If you hire me and I ask you a specific question in an email, please try to answer it to the best of your abilities, or if you can't at that time, please tell me you can't or you haven't decided. For instance, if I ask you if a font color is okay, either tell me that it is or ask for different color options at that particular point in time. If you remain silent, I'm going to take it to mean that the color choice is okay with you and proceed accordingly. I don't want to find out 20 emails later when I'm ready to install your design that you really hate the color or whatever design choice that I previously asked you about. Plus, the more you answer my questions, the better I will be able to give you exactly what you want design-wise.

Sorry for all the technical mumbo jumbo, but sometimes you have to learn these things as you go along, and my TOS page is long enough.

Fast Food Six Pack Abs

My newest design is for a brand new blog, Fast Food Six Pack Abs. La Velle La Rue, the blog's owner, has lost an amazing 140 pounds while still eating fast food. Because his new blog is going to be about that journey, he wanted a design that showcased his before and after shots. He also wanted it to be energetic and use orange, yellow, and green as the main colors. Here is the before shot of La Velle La Rue's blog:



And here is the after:



I drew the vector images myself using a free trial of Xara Xtreme. It's a lot easier to use than Inkscape, but I may be a little biased on that front since Inkscape likes to freeze up on me and Xara doesn't. If I grow to like it too much, I may have to start saving up to buy it.

Thanks, La Velle La Rue, for letting me design your new blog! Considering my inability to cook without burning, blowing up, or breaking things, I will definitely be checking out those fast food meal plans once you get them posted.