Latest blog posts
Website revamp!
Hello all! Over the past couple of days I’ve been tweaking my site. Most of the changes probably won’t even be noticeable to anyone but myself, but I’m pretty happy about it all. I warn you, the following is all fairly geeky. To reward you in advance for reading, here’s a picture of a pretty field in Paris circa 2007.
Changes:
• My primary domain is now daraskolnick.com instead of openedeyes.net. I started with openedeyes.net back in 2006, and while I still like the name, I didn’t feel like that represented my portfolio website anymore. I used to have daraskolnick.com redirecting to openedeyes.net, but now it’s the other way around. I still own openedeyes.net and I have some plans for how to use it in the future!
• All of my pages run on WordPress now. I used to have a setup where my blog was running on WordPress and all of my other content (Art, Design, Photos, etc.) were static HTML pages. I felt like I wasn’t using WordPress to its fullest potential that way, and to be honest, updating all of the pages manually was annoying. After a bit of coding and tweaking, I now have WordPress running everything. It’s much better this way.
• I’ve replaced some images that were GIFs with PNGs. The transparency support is way better… that is, unless you’re using an old version of Internet Explorer. If that is the case, I have one word for you: Firefox.
• This isn’t brand new, but it’s still worth mentioning: I now have my email running through Google Apps. Basically that means that all email addresses I set up @daraskolnick.com run through Google’s servers, get the Gmail interface, and work with Google Calendars, Google Docs, and other such services. Love!
• I finally made myself a Favicon (the little icon that shows up next to the URL in your browser). I also added some shiny buttons at the side linking to my Twitter and Flickr accounts. I hang around on other social networking sites as well, but I’m the most active on those two. I might add more in the future. Or I might not. We’ll see.
That’s about it, really. To thank you for sticking with me through my nerdfest, here’s another picture that I took. This time it’s of Sacre Coeur.
(By the way, both pictures were made using Poladroid. If you miss polaroid film as much as I do, I encourage you to check this out!)
Hello from Austin!
Because photo posts are my favourite, here are some photos from my very brief visit to Austin, Texas.
Here (or hear), Kitty Kitty!
Ohh, so pretty. Down by the river.
Only 5 cents! Relieves fatigue! If this picture were a bit more zoomed out, you’d see that this is referring to Wrigley’s Spearmint gum.
(I guess people didn’t take the sign too seriously.)
As a Canadian, this was the first time I’d seen The Onion out in the wild like this. I was obviously pretty excited.
Links! January 24, 2009
• Copie d’Arte – This is amazing. Basically, someone has recreated a bunch of famous artwork… using Lego! As an Art History major who spent hours and hours playing with Lego as a child, I hereby pronounce this the coolest thing ever.
• In other related news, Lego is launching a new range of digital cameras and MP3 players. I’m not quite sure how to feel about this!
• 5 Ways Blogging Can Make a Difference for You in This Economy from Problogger. Something positive to think about in this glorious Recession Season.
• Show Us Your Desktop at Bittbox takes a look at various designers’ desktops. I find it really interesting to see how other creative people organize their things.
• Last but not least, XKCD’s I’m An Idiot. This will surely be a classic.
♥ Dara
New Year, New Post, New Poster
Hello, world! I haven’t posted here for a while, but now it’s a new year, and I heard a rumour that new years can involve starting things afresh. Things like blogs. I’m not really into making resolutions, but if I were, I’d definitely resolve to update my blog as often as humanly possible.
Speaking of the new year, I rang in 2009 at C’est What, a restaurant/bar/all around cool place in downtown Toronto. Pool, poutine, and awesome people were involved, so it was a really good time.
Every time I see a pool table I think of The Music Man. Anyone with me?
On another note, I’ve already completed my first poster design of 2009, and I’d like to share it with you!
For this poster, I used both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. In the past I was more of an exclusively-Photoshop kind of girl, but nowadays I really do like Illustrator a lot. If you couldn’t tell, I created the happy ghosts in Illustrator. I love vector images (which is what you’re creating in Illustrator) because you can blow them up to any size and they retain their smooth edges. This is because the images are actually based on mathematical formulae instead of pixels. It seems that math has come in handy in the real world after all!
♥ Dara
Forgive me, blog, for I have sinned.
It seems that I have completely abandoned my poor website!
Sorry, friends, readers, strangers, and bots that are perusing my site! I’ll chalk it up to starting school and settling into a new routine. If you don’t know, I am taking Graphic Design courses at a certain college in Toronto. They’re definitely interesting!
Here is another poster that I created a little while back:
One positive thing that I can say about design school is that I will never take computers for granted again! Most of our work is done by hand, so we draw thumbnails by hand, collage by hand, and draw fonts by hand (!!). Crazy stuff!
♥ Dara.
Twitter
Dribbble
Flickr
Linkedin
RSS