NEW BLOG DESIGN/ BARCELONA


Hi there! It's been a while since my last post but I have a good reason! Today's post is very special for me not just for being the first one of 2014 (I know too late!) but specially because I'm gonna talk about the new blog design I've been working on since Christmas.

But first a little bit of personal update! The Christmas holidays went perfect around here (perhaps too much eating though!). Christmas is my favorite Holiday by far and being with the whole family is totally priceless. We also had some friends from Holland visiting us here in Barcelona and we had the opportunity of being tourists in our own place which is really great! I don't know if this happens to you but I've seen very little of my own city. Why this happens? When I am visiting other places I don't want to miss any detail but it changes when I am in my country, then I relax too much. This time we went to Parc Güell designed by Antoni Gaudi. In the picture above you can see the amazing Barcelona views from the park, the Mediterranean sea and even the Sagrada Familia also designed by Gaudi and still under construction. If you have been there you know why it's so special and if you haven't been I really recommend it!

Ok. Let's talk about the new blog design! Before coming to Barcelona, I started to think that the blog needed a better face. When I started blogging (8 months ago already!) I didn't pay too much attention to this issue. I just wanted to start sharing my projects, so I chose an already designed template and I started! There's nothing wrong in what I did but 8 months later I realized that my current blog design wasn't personal at all and I didn't feel comfortable with it.

But I still didn't know how I wanted it to be (big problem I thought!). I started to look around trying to define my tastes. This took me a month more or less and it was a quite hard process! But I succeed!

So what has changed?



- Sewing Lab has a LOGO! (hurrah!). This was the most difficult part by far. I've been 8 months thinking how it should be. And one night the idea just came! Then I scanned the drawing and there it was the logo I had been waiting for! Once I had the logo the rest of the process was much easier. (well...kind of!)

- From 3 to just 2 COLUMNS! One for the content and also the sidebar. This helps to keep the design clean, simple and organized.

- COLORS: I love pretty much all colors! This was also a tough decision. I started to pin images that appealed to me and it turned out that I pinned almost everything that had the colors mint and salmon. I also added a neutral one! I decided to use colors with caution to avoid a busy design.

- NO READ MORE button. When I started blogging I though it was a great decision to add a read more button to avoid the endless scrolling down. But I've realized that the blogs I enjoy the most doesn't have read more button and it turns out to be annoying for me. However I have limited to 4 the number of posts per page so the scrolling down should be less painful. I want to keep the read more button for mobile devices though, it makes much more sense.

- POST ARCHIVES. I've tried to be more organized and I've created two places in the menu called PROJECTS and PATTERNS AND TUTORIALS respectively. Here you will easily find all I've done without having to check out all the posts.

- DRAWINGS: Since the fabric design contest I've been drawing more and more. As I wanted the blog appearance to be more personal I decided to create my own social media icons and gadgets for the sidebar. It's been a really fun process and I love how they look.

-FONTS: Choosing fonts has never been my strong point. But that was because I didn't pay enough attention! One day checking out a surf magazine from my partner I discovered that I was in love with sans serif fonts. I've limited the number of fonts that are going to appear here in the blog. Just one for titles and another one for the content. This is a great relief for me because I was losing a lot of time always that I wanted to edit an image. I almost forgot! There's also gonna be one handwritten font that I have bought called Notebook which I love (Wish I could use my own handwritten font but you won't catch a word!).

Well I think more or less that's all. There's still little modifications in my list but the blog can start running as usual. In the next months I will make sure the blog is totally responsive for mobile devices (still working on that!).

Finally I want to thank my partner who has done all the programming work here. He has dedicated lots of hours to achieve what was in my mind! Thank you so much for making my dream come true :)

Thanks also to all of you for stopping by. Hope you all enjoy the new design and the new content that is about to come! Stay tuned!

Ingrid

6 comments:

  1. Growing up in one place I feel like I've seen it all until I see something new :) I do travel a lot and I really loved my visit to Barcelona. What a beautiful city!

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  2. Your blog looks great - love the follow me buttons!

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  3. I love your new design. The colors are pretty and the drawn buttons, etc. on your sidebar are awesome!

    Thank you so much for sharing at Needle and Thread Thursday!

    :) Kelly @ My Quilt Infatuation

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  4. well done, your blog template is a great design

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