Broken - Late Of The Pier

This is by far the best song we play; enjoy!

Torn On The Platform - Jack Penate

Sofa Song - The Kooks

The drunk guy at the end of this made my evening, seriously - so funny!

Amylase - Cajun Dance Party

George made me laugh in this one hahaha :-)

I’m really looking forward to our first gig on Saturday at Georgie’s; here the line-up:

1. Sofa Song - The Kooks
2. I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance - Black Kids
3. Moving To New York - The Wombats
4. Torn On The Platform - Jack Penate
5. Nature Of The Experiment - Tokyo Police Club
6. Broken - Late Of The Pier

We’ll hopefully have some of our own stuff to post here or to our future band website later in the year. More later.

Also, in case you were wondering, I’ve made a switch from Lucida Sans to Segoe UI for the main text font on this site, as it is my new favourite. I’ve noticed that Microsoft have switched to the Segoe typeface for the new Windows 7 and Windows Live services, from Verdana, which they’ve used since the very first Windows. So this new one must be good…

Thanks for any suggestions :-)

Although I’m supposed to be working, I couldn’t resist getting outside in the snow and taking photos:

Warning

“One who walks in another’s tracks leaves no footprints.”

Love that house

Whilst having fun taking these photos, the first photo here of the sign highlights for me some issues that I’m facing at the moment. I can’t elaborate much at the moment on this subject, but basically I have had to say goodbye to a website I was working on for a client for a long time. What really annoyed me was how much I liked the design, and it’s almost like it has gone to waste. However, my plan is to release this layout as a free WordPress theme, as I mentioned in my last post. I’ll keep you updated on everything, peeps!

Nixon & George

Nixon & George

Nixon

Toma

And while you’re here, a big cheesey grin from me! Also, over the next couple of months, I’ll be revealing a sleek new WordPress theme, available to download for free to use on your blogs. New website design underway; thinking about switching to ExpressionEngine.

Cheesey grin :D

In actual fact I was only making a post to say that I prefer the personal stuff, in response to your earlier post but I gather that there is a mix of people who read this and so surely a mix of subject matter would have to be covered? - Ahaha, I could have just left a comment on your previous post, I think I might just be making a post simply because I can :)

Now everyone go wish poor Joe well because he’s feeling a bit under the weather :)

This isn’t really much of a blog anymore. Please do this poll:

What sort of posts would you like to see here?

1. Personal life stuff, like a diary
2. Internet things, articles, and informative stuff

This will help me to see what sort of people are reading my blog, and what you guys want to see!

Top Five Blogs PDF Document, 736kb

1: Subtraction - http://subtraction.com

Subtraction

Khoi Vinh?s blog ? Subtraction ? is a commonly used example of a near-to-perfect piece of web design and a fantastic manipulation of a black and white colour scheme, spiced up by the occasional burst of orange, with a hover here and a hover there.

I think the photographs in this site do it for me. Although most are in black and white, they are still refreshing from the large amount of text on the site. Mister President, his dog, makes for a good welcoming photo (above).

His extensive use of a strict grid layout is a technique I have used many times, and has proved to be very effective in tidying up the design and user interface, therefore making the whole system more easy to navigate and much more usable. And this website reflects the extent that grids can be used to in good web design, and Mr. Vinh has taken a courageous and adventurous approach in making this site?s design exciting and inspirational, not just an eight-column black and white boredom.

2: Lokesh Dhakar - http://lokeshdhakar.com

Lokesh Dhakar

Creator of the famous Lightbox JS, Lokesh?s personal site is blog that has inspired me, no only due to its fantastic uses of colour and pure CSS for design, but also because it?s different, it doesn?t look like a typical WordPress blog, with your main content and a sidebar with links on the right. It is clear that Lokesh has put time and effort into making this masterpiece of a weblog his own, refining the user interface to a bare minimum, resulting in a clean, readable product that looks welcoming and free.

It?s the small details on this site that amaze me, and you can see that every inch of the pages has been thought out, so that the information can be displayed in the most usable and original way as possible.

This example (left) emphasises the admin comments amongst the visitors? comments, with this refreshing, rich blue, that surprises us (as the rest of the site sticks to black, white, grey and orange). The archives are another brilliant representation of a lot of data.

And that?s without mentioning the content: Lokesh?s info graphics of coffee drinks and baseball sketches have been very popular on the Internet, so much so that they have been printed onto mugs, t-shirts and all sorts. When he does post, I am continually impressed by the quality of the content produced, but my one criticism is that Lokesh needs to use this blog more. With periods of months in between blogging, most posts mention how he will start publishing to the blog more often, but it never happens. C?mon Lokesh, this is an amazing site! Just keep up the good work.

3: Jon Tan - http://jontangerine.com

Jon Tangerine

Now we have a British designer. Following a similar colour scheme as the previous two websites, but a completely different ? and extremely effective ? choice of typefaces, Jon Tan?s weblog is one of a kind. The platform is custom built for him, so goodbye to cheesy, regimented WordPress themes and hello to an elastic grid layout that uses plain text combined with CSS to create the most outstanding graphics (the ?Pith & Pulp? above is not an image, but formatted text).

This website?s manipulation of serif fonts is a really nice change from Arial, which we see used on most blogs these days. His articles begin with a newspaper-esque large, floated first letter, which all the text wraps around. Small features in the design, such as the hyperlinks in small caps, makes thiswebsite an influential and well-thought-out piece of web design.

4: Elliot Jay Stocks - http://elliotjaystocks.com

Elliot Jay Stocks

And now for something completely different?

Elliot Jay Stocks? blog doesn?t follow the archetypal colour schemes, layouts and glossy graphics of all the Web 2.0 sites these days. Describing the site?s design as ?grunge?, his use of ‘Nars’, and Lucida Grande, are brave features of this site that make it totally different. There is still a loose grid layout used here, but it?s flexible and rock ?n? roll, which I find very inspirational.

The dark background textures and very complex web graphics hardly affect the sites loading time, and result in a visually impressive look, grabbing the eye and forcing us to read on.

5: Astheria - http://astheria.com

Astheria (Kyle Meyer)

And last, but certainly not least, Kyle Meyer has used his user interface design skills to create an elegant website. It?s so minimal and so simplistic, but it gets the point right across and makes for a very attractive design. It doesn?t follow the rules; Meyer hasn?t concentrated on making it a big ugly Web 2.0 blog. Instead, he has carefully refined every piece of information, completely cutting out any unnecessary information, leaving a beautiful site with tidy code and a very navigable design.

And everything is so small, which gave Kyle the opportunity to make use of font size and whack up the headers to say to the reader: ?Hello! This is what you?re reading, and obviously below this is the content of the post.? It?s so simple, but it?s designed to match how our brains think ? you could never get lost in this website.

Conclusion

All of these blogs I have followed from at least a couple of years, and their design, code and content has been educational and inspirational to me. So that’s why they’re in my well-deserved top five. Have a read, they’re awesome!