~ Design / Work (51 posts) ~

Design is a weapon. A good design is like a good weapon. Hits the target without miss and we skillfully manage it. You should only point the target. Enjoy the last template i did.

Which song/band is the riff from?

Things are doing fine in my life, as always. Since my daughter was born everything has changed for me and the way i understand work. I work for living, that's all. My free time is dedicated to my wife and my daughter more than it was before. My sense of humour has always been important in my life and i feel that my daughter is growing happy. I always wonder what is the image a 15 month old kid might have in his/her mind about his/her father. I am sure it is some sort of CLOWN. Everytime i arrive home and she sees me, she starts laughing. A CLOWN, for sure.

Let's talk about beer now. Why beer? Cause my last webdesign is about beer.

Beer is the world's oldest and most popular alcoholic beverage. Some of the earliest known writing refers to the production and distribution of beer. It is produced by the fermentation of sugars derived from starch-based material — the most common being malted barley; however, wheat, corn, and rice are also widely used, usually in conjunction with barley. Less widely used starch sources include millet, sorghum and cassava root in Africa, potato in Brazil, and agave in Mexico, among others.

The starch source is steeped in water, along with certain enzymes, to produce a sugary wort which is then flavoured with herbs, fruit or most commonly hops. Yeast is then used to cause fermentation, which produces alcohol and other waste products from anaerobic respiration of the sugars. The process of beer production is called brewing.

Beer uses many varying ingredients, production methods and traditions. The type of yeast and production method may be used to classify beer into ale, lager and spontaneously fermented beers. Some beer writers and organizations differentiate and categorize beers by various factors into beer styles. Alcoholic beverages fermented from non-starch sources such as grape juice (wine) or honey (mead), as well as distilled beverages, are not classified as beer.

Furniture is the collective term for the movable objects which may support the human body (seating furniture and beds), provide storage, or hold objects on horizontal surfaces above the ground. Storage furniture (which often makes use of doors, drawers, and shelves) is used to hold or contain smaller objects such as clothes, tools, books, and household goods. we can be talking for weeks in here about furniture history. But my latest design is the one i am more proud of. Turn on your speakers.

Furniture can be a product of artistic design and is considered a form of decorative art. In addition to furniture's functional role, it can serve a symbolic or religious purpose. Domestic furniture works to create, in conjunction with furnishings such as clocks and lighting, comfortable and convenient interior spaces. Furniture can be made from many materials, including metal, plastic, and wood. The most popular form of furniture is made of real wood finished your way. This entails a piece of solid wood furniture that is usually purchased unfinished and then finished anyway the end user would like. To combat the misleading notion that anything else counts as furniture the "Unfinished Furniture Association" was formed to educate the public.

Soy consciente, tengo mails, me llaman por teléfono para echarme en cara que no escribo más en este blog. Estoy muy atareado y tengo muchas cosas en la cabeza como para andar escribiendo aqui sin tiempo. Ya no hago reviews porno, pero las haré... cuando tenga más tiempo.

Llevo practicamente 2 meses currando a destajo por la mañana, por la tarde y por la noche. Una hija a la que cuidar, una mujer a la que dedicar mi tiempo tambien, una empresa para la que trabajo que me trae estresado, y muchos proyectos en los que estoy metido que me quitan practicamente todo el tiempo del que dispongo. Que bien lo describí en blogsmedia ; para mi el dia debería de tener 36 horas. Que cierto es.

Y solo paso por aquí para aumentar mi ego y enseñaros los diseños que voy haciendo, para despues recibir mas mails diciendo lo bueno que soy. Juas!. Necesito aumentar mi ego. Abajo mi último trabajo, con el que me siento muy identificado porque tomo casi 5 cafés diarios, y no debo. Que lo disfruteis.

El fin de semana que viene (que no este) andaré por el EBE. Asi es que si me queda algo de tiempo y quereis tomaros unos finitos, ya sabeis mi MSN.

In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth (Gk. λαβύρινθος labyrinthos) was an elaborate structure constructed for King Minos of Crete and designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus to hold the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull and which was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus. Daedalus had made the Labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it. Theseus was aided by Ariadne, who provided him with a fateful thread, literally the "clew," or "clue," to wind his way back again.

The term labyrinth is often used interchangeably with maze, but modern scholars of the subject use a stricter definition. For them, a maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage with choices of path and direction; while a single-path ("unicursal") labyrinth has only a single Eulerian path to the center. A labyrinth has an unambiguous through-route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate.

Based on that, i had to do a webdesign for a company with a laberynth as logo. I used it as navigation idea on my last design you can see below.

¿Seríais capaces de ver mi ultimo diseño sin girar la cabeza hacia la izquierda 45 grados? ¿Seríais capaces de diseñar así?. Todo un reto diseñar en flash olvidando totalmente la manera de diseñar de siempre, donde arriba es arriba y abajo es abajo. No es fácil, no fue fácil ni tan siquiera maquetar el diseño. De ahí que haya tardado más de la cuenta en escribir y publicarlo aqui. Que ustedes lo disfruten.

Well, we have a new member in the family. Apps Mania will be from now on CSS Mania's sister. We would say that Apps Mania is like Techcrunch with CSS Mania's mood. A place to be informed as easier as possible of the new applications out there. Enjoy.

Pues eso, que llega el verano. Llega el verano y se nota en mi vida diaria por 4 cosas primordiales. Me empiezan a sudar las pelotas más que lo de costumbre, la comunidad de vecinos sube, y mis diseños web sufren una transformación negativa que me hacen estar mucho menos tiempo delante del ordenador , dedicado a otros menesteres. El último y no menos importante es que mi mujer está cada día que pasa más atractiva y guapa.

El primero de los diseños de esta época del año.

Llevo casi un mes y medio que no paro por España. Mi trabajo de día me asfixia , mi trabajo de tarde me presiona y mi trabajo de madrugada lo llevo un poco mejor.

Grecia y Dinamarca en cuestion de 14 dias, y muchos diseños por entregar. Un blog un tanto descuidado pero aquí estamos sacando un poco de tiempo para actualizarlo mientras la niña duerme un domingo por la mañana.

¿Qué has hecho en temas de diseño este último mes? , me preguntais. Un par de ellos, que podeis ver abajo. Todo en Flash como siempre y sin salirme mucho de lo que se hacer.

El primero un poco experimental y jugando un poco con un estilo de menú que casi nunca he usado. El segundo sin mucha historia. Un diseño rápido de 6 horas que me veia obligado a terminar antes de que acabara este mes.

Mañana más.

Again. I know. Lack of updates in this blog of mine. Tons of projects going on right now outside this blog. Tons of designs to deliver during April and May. Then this company i work for that wants to do some business in Athens with their customer. So that's what i will do next week. I will be in Athens for a week period, 4th time i am there in my whole Ericsson's life, 4th time i will meet the same people i met the other times. 1st time i will be more than 100Km far from my lovely wife and my daughter since she was born. For sure that i will miss her while updating my beloved CSS Mania.

Oh, Athens. What a lovely place to visit. What a sad city if you are alone.

Ok, this is something i had in mind since Flash 8 was released. I needed to play around a bit with it, and here is my first template done completely in Flash 8.

Creating more compelling designs with built-in filter effects like drop shadow, blur, glow, bevel, gradient bevel, and color adjust, run-time control over blend modes allowing graphical effects to be composited for fully dynamic user interactivity, font rendering engine that provides clear highest-quality font rendering, Easily & intuitively & precisely control the velocity of animated objects through an intuitive graph that provides independent control of position, rotation, scale, color, and filters. Tighter control over gradients such as changing the focal point of a radial gradient and selecting from different overflow modes. All this, below.

I am quite happy with what i've learnt. Not used to the new features yet, but i will with the time. The more i use it , the more i like it.

Es un verdadero compromiso ocuparse de un animalito como un hámster, un pajarito, un perro o un gato; enriquece la educación de nuestros hijos, ya que les crea una responsabilidad que les hace comprender muchas cosas. Diferenciar un juguete de un ser vivo es la principal función, unidas a ésta, se encuentra la comprensión, la responsabilidad y el cariño. Nosotros debemos ayudar a nuestro hijo para que comprenda que un animal no debe ser un mero capricho que puede desear y abandonar a su antojo, enseñarle la responsabilidad y la importancia que conlleva tener un animalito en casa, es fundamental para su educación y formación futura. Esta es una de las cosas que pienso enseñarle a mi hija cuando crezca.

Algunos padres por desgracia, complacen el capricho de sus hijos y ellos mismos sucumben ante las responsabilidades, son ellos mismos los primeros que cuando ven que el niño ya no quiere saber nada de su capricho, los que se encargan de hacerlo desaparecer abandonándolo o malcuidandolo. Esta actitud puede hacer que nuestro hijo adquiera un comportamiento que seguramente no desearíamos en un futuro, ser irresponsable, ser indiferente ante un ser vivo, etc. Comportarse de una manera respetuosa ante un animal es una tarea nuestra, y debemos transmitírsela a nuestro hijo para que valore a un ser vivo y que aprecie la importancia de la responsabilidad que un animal conlleva.

Si tu hijo te ha pedido un animalito de compañía, empezar con este aprendizaje a través de un refugio para animales, allí se da cuenta de cómo es la situación de un animal que ha sido abandonado por un mero capricho. Aunque no adoptes un animal en uno de estos sitios, visitarlos conciencia a nuestro hijo. Hay muchas asociaciones repartidas por nuestro país (España), con todo tipo de animales de compañía para ver o para adoptar, por poner un ejemplo, existe en Madrid la Asociación Nacional de Amigos de los Animales (ANAA), puedes visitar el refugio de esta asociación o colaborar con una adopción o simplemente hacer de canguro para un animal. Fomentar la responsabilidad que conlleva tener un animal y mostrar las consecuencias de la irresponsabilidad es una tarea en la cual nuestro hijo va a aprender a ser responsable y respetuoso en muchas facetas de su vida.

¡Que ni pintado me ha venido esto para enseñaros el último diseño en el que he estado trabajando y que podeis ver arriba!. A disfrutarlo. Ya sabeis donde podeis comprarlo.

Jetlag is actually caused by disruption of your 'body clock', a small cluster of brain cells that controls the timing of biological functions (circadian rhythms), including when you eat and sleep. The body clock is designed for a regular rhythm of daylight and darkness, so it's thrown out of sync when it experiences daylight and darkness at the 'wrong' times in a new time zone. The symptoms of jetlag often persist for days as the internal body clock slowly adjusts to the new time zone.

By following a carefully timed program of light and dark at the times your body clock is most responsive, you can quickly reset it to the new time zone. Instead of taking a week or more to adjust to an intercontinental journey, you can become fully adapted to the new time zone in just one or two days.

A successful time zone shift depends on knowing the exact times to seek and avoid bright light. Exposure to light at the wrong time can actually make jetlag worse. The proper schedule for light exposure depends a great deal on specific travel plans. Taking a night flight to Tokyo, for instance, creates very different demands than a day flight to Los Angeles. Personal variables are important too; if you're a 'night owl' you'll typically need a different schedule to a 'lark'.

Acording to the Jet Lag Calculator as i have travelled east from Madrid to Sydney, I should avoid light between 06:30 and 11:30 then switch to seek bright light until 14:30. Ok, i haven´t done any of this. Today i should avoid light between 03:30 and 08:30 then switch to seek bright light until 11:30. Ok, same shit, i don´t think i will be able to do this. And here i am, can´t sleep and waiting some hours for a meeting with this guys, and designing in flash a hotel template you can see finished above. Enjoy.

Antiguamente el Feng Shui estudiaba la naturaleza, el clima, la luz, los astros, etc. Los gran maestros llegaron a calcular la velocidad de la luz y predecir la lluvia. Con el paso de tiempo, este conocimiento se fue perdiendo, y ahora solo se conoce la parte de "Kan Yu". Actualmente el Feng Shui se limita al estudio de los que nos rodea desde todos los elementos circundantes como calles, edificios, ríos, montañas, etc. hasta todos los elementos dentro de la construcción como la ubicación de cuartos de baño, salones, cocinas, camas, mesas de despacho, etc.. en lo que a mi respecta, me propuse que mi nueva casa tuviera lo que a la antigua le faltaba, hasta mi hija ya tiene su habitación cuidando los detalles del Fensg-Shui. La verdad es que a mi me parece una soplapollez, pero... así está diseñada.

¿Por qué?. Precisamente porque he aprendido un huevo del tema para mi último cliente. Y las cosas como son, de momento parece que se han acabado las noches de dormir poco desde que la niña duerme orientada a las reglas de la movida esta japonesa.

Claudia and my Wife, Susana, are back home. She is 10 days old right now, and both are doing fine. I realized in the last days that i changed from being husband to be husband-father. Same happens with Susana, changing from being wife to be wife-mother. She is doing fine. She is doing pretty fine. I love my wife more than anything in the world and i feel like she will be a very good mother for Claudia.

Now that both of us are getting used to non-sleeping during the nights for more than 3 hours i decided it is time to design while she is sleeping. Never thought i could do 2 new designs in 7 hours. Maybe it is just because of her. Enjoy them as i did designing them while Claudia was sleeping.

You all know where to purchase them.

People have used flowers to express their feelings, enhance their surroundings, and to commemorate important rituals and observances throughout history. The knowledge of how our ancestors used flowers comes to us in numerous ways. All forms of art, depict the use of flowers: music, books, paintings, sculpture, ceramics and tapestries are only examples of some of the sources of information regarding the use of flowers in past times. Some of the most opulent examples of source material for us are the flower pictures produced by artists during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, which so accurately dipict flowers in their incredible beauty.

As we know them today, flower arrangements represent an amalgamation of two styles: the 'European and New World Style' and the 'Oriental' style. The European style arrangements from which we borrowed were filled with large numbers of flowers rich in various colors, and are referred to as 'Mass Arrangements'. In contrast, the Oriental styles emphasized simplicity, containing few flowers and conservative colors, and, as they emphasized lines instead of masses, are known as 'Line Arrangements'.

Mientras media blogosfera española estaba en Sevilla en el EBE , el que aquí escribe estaba trabajando en esta su empresa (y digo SU porque parte de la empresa es mía... si, si, si, tengo acciones señores... suelo tener acciones de los sitios en los que trabajo) durante el fin de semana. Eché de menos estar por allí abajo.

A pocos días de ver los ojos de mi niña, y más nervioso que nunca. Susana está bien, con las hormonas por los aires... pero bien. Casi casi tan por el aire como las mías. Ando muy nervioso y poco inspirado, y encima desde el EBE veo a la rubia morbosa....... no me lo tengais en cuenta. Aun así, ver a la rubia el domingo, me dió alas para mi último diseño.

Yo soy de los que piensan que el silencio es el don de la armonía, soy de los que matan los rencores y los olvidan al otro día. No soy de los que apuntan y se guardan experiencias maltratadas; suelo vivir el día a día y no creo en los cuentos de hada. Cuando me entrego tengo la manía de entregarme en cuerpo y alma, y empiezo a ver que de tanto entregarme tengo la ilusión gastada; mantengo el amor y la esperanza para luchar contra mi mente, le planto siempre cara a mi pasado y me gana este presente.

Algunos son de los que tiran la piedra y siempre esconden la mano, ellos tienen el papel de buenos y a mi me dan el de villano. Si tienen que besarme siempre me besan donde besan los que venden. A veces me canso de rodar como una noria, estoy cansado de vivir la misma historia, cansado de bailar el mismo baile.

¿Y por qué cuento esto?. Todo lo anterior es aplicable cuando diseño. Dígamos que es la última sensación que me he llevado al hacer un diseño que ha sido descartado despues de casí 2 semanas en cuerpo y alma a él. Bueno, realmente no es que haya sido descartado, mas bien les he mandado a tomar por culo yo a los que me lo encargaron. Si es usted uno de ellos, ¡jódase!, lo que ven arriba es lo que se han perdido. ¡Busquen a otro que les alimente sus pajas mentales!. Yo ya estoy demasiado mayor.

Si bien el tema lleva casi año y medio funcionando bien, nada mejor como la frase que gobierna la web Demasiado ocupados para hacer nuestra web corporativa... para explicar la situación ahora mismo. Queda por lo tanto "inaugurada" de algún modo la web corporativa de éste que aquí escribe.

Diseño y programación, consultoría en estrategias de comunicación y marketing, formación corporativa en blogs y Web 2.0, nanopublicaciones. Sin hacer mucho ruido.

Wanna become a top model but don´t have enough money to have a website designed? Wanna have a quality website for your online portfolio or photo book? Haven´t been in Hollywood yet but you wanna be there? Wanna be the next headhunted model in history? Wanna have your website done for free without having sex with a stranger? Wanna have your website done and keep your inocence for 90$? Your chance, below, in my last flash template. You can purchase it here.

I am back from my trip to our lovely spanish city, Seville. Sunny down there and nice people met from one of the customers i work for. Now i am back to Madrid. The coming weeks will be quite hard for me and my wife. Our baby coming in a month and a half time, new house (we manage to sell ours) on its way, and too much money spent in furniture. That's why i decided to do a Flash template for a furniture company with some photos in the design of our real house right now. Guess them. Enjoy.

What am i doing here talking about my wife's hormones? What's the relation between my wife's pregnancy hormones and my Flash design?. Well, there is some.

While a woman's physical changes may be obvious during pregnancy, several other ones may be subtle, including a growing sense of immense emotional attachment and reprioritization. The vast majority of these changes are attributable to the hormones of pregnancy. The first trimester of pregnancy begins with conception. As egg and sperm unite, and the conceptus implants into the endometrium or uterine lining, a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) is produced. HCG is thought to be the hormone responsible for a number of symptoms associated with early pregnancy, namely nausea and resultant vomiting and the sometimes overwhelming fatigue that can plague the very early expectant woman.

Then we have Progestorene. Progesterone is one of the major hormones of pregnancy and is primarily produced by the placenta. Levels of progesterone in the body rise as pregnancy progresses. Progesterone functions to inhibit the smooth muscle in the uterus from contracting and decreases prostaglandin formation, both of which allow the fetus to grow with the expanding uterus. Estrogens (which are the female sex hormones) also increase during pregnancy and are also produced primarily by the placenta. Among other functions, estrogens increase uterine blood flow. Prolactin, the hormone that allows for lactation postpartum, also increases throughout pregnancy, and its production is thought to be stimulated by increasing levels of estrogens. And according to my wife and her strogens, the guy below is the sexiest customer i had to design a web for. And he is a lawyer... oh well!

Anyhow, the joy of being pregnant may often move a woman to tears. Anxiety in regard to how a woman may feel about herself and the way her body is changing is normal, and her concerns regarding her own health and the health of the fetus are paramount. Anticipation of the new role of being a mother and the changes a new baby will bring to the family may be overwhelming.

Creo que todavia no salgo de mi asombro ante el último encargo que me han hecho. Me llama el otro día un gran amigo del que no sabía desde hace por lo menos 11 años, cuando yo aún estudiaba Ingeniería Naval antes de darme cuenta que una Ingeniería Técnica no era ningún fracaso. ¡Tonto de mí , la verdad!

Éste amigo me pide que haga un diseño para un evento de gays/lesbianas que se celebrará en Almería. Se trata de un concurso de Golf, pero única y exclusivamente para gays/lesbianas. Hasta aquí todo bien, todo estupendo. Me pongo con mi flash y en alrededor de 35 horas termino un diseño que creo que es más que válido, podeis verlo abajo.

¿Por qué mi asombro?. El diseño es rechazado a los 3-4 días (aceptable), única y exclusivamente porque el director del evento (gay atroz) me dice que "se tiene que sentir", que el evento está orientado a gays y que "no le vale ese diseño". Y aquí es donde viene mi asombro, no llego a entender a esta gente, de verdad. Trato de ser coherente, de aceptar a todo el mundo, de respetar a los demás, y me pregunto..... ¿Qué más da a quien esté orientado? ¿Qué cojones importa? ¿No quieren que se les trate y respete como a los demás? ¿Tiene que notarse que es para gays? ¿Cómo? ¿Poniendo fotos?. No entiendo.

Well, here at Nv30 i have some money to give away through Paypal from my last month incomes. Question is easy : Name the three models and their born date (from my last design in flash you can see below) and submit them to any of my e-mails before the end of this month and get those 1000$ in your paypal account. Enjoy the design, enjoy your surfing, enjoy the money. Bigger pictures when you click on them.

The winner will be announced 30th September 2006 at 15:00PM (GMT+1).

Gimme coffee. It has been two days without sleeping more than 2 hours each night. Gimme coffee. This design you can see below was just one of the reasons. Starbucks in Spain contacted me to deliver them my idea of what a Coffee Shop webpage must have. This is what they got from me. Not some work i am planning to charge, but just enough that my name is known. Enjoy.

Traditionally the most important material for jewellery down here in Syria was silver, but for poorer people copper and bronze were also used. Silver gilt and gold were less common and used only in exceptional cases. Precious stones played no part in folk jewelry, but semi-precious stones occur occasion­ally. Cornelian, agate, turquoise and amber were the first choice, and magical properties were attributed to them, because of their colours. Consequently glass beads of the same colours could be substituted. This is what i have learned talking with the people in Damascus.

It is extremely difficult to draw the line between Syrian folk Jewellery and the jewellery of the neighbouring regions, as traditions of late antiquity and Byzantium are still just as apparent as those of the Near East. Syrian jewellery, however, also shows influences of Egyptian, Palestinian and Yemenite jewellery, as well as of jewellery from present- day Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran and Central Asia.

And jewellery is what my last design is about. Down here in Damascus, no matter the amount of work i have, i also find some time for designing. Check above. Back home to my lovely Spain tomorrow.

Funny weekend the one i had. As i already explained, i use anything as inspiration for a design. Then my wife told me that the baby we are waiting for (a girl) was kicking her stomach too much during the last two days. I said : "Susana, that's cause she wants daddy to do a design based on her". And that's what i did using my flash knowledge. And then the baby stopped. Enjoy as my wife did. Logo Inspiration.

Well, we are a bit impressed this weekend; seems like nobody heard about Carbonmade since they launched back in February more or less. When i talk about being impressed is just because several friends we consider gurús in terms of "what's going on in the internet", they have never mentioned or payed attention to it until last week where most of them have written about it in their blogs. Well, for this people, myself at Cssmania showcased it in February. And it is today when i decide to give it a try with my portfolio.

Building a portfolio is an excellent way to establish an online presence for yourself. Whether you are a designer, photographer, fashion designer, or whatever it may be, a portfolio allows you to show your work and make an impression. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to build a portfolio online and not everyone wants to spend a fortune for someone to make a portfolio for them. This is where the new not so new service called Carbonmade can help you. Carbonmade allows you to make a very nice looking and functional portfolio in no time. It is amazingly easy to make a portfolio that was presentable to anyone you will have an interview with in the next 2 hours.

Summer is peak season for most domestically grown fruit. It doesn't have to travel as far, so it can mature longer on the tree before being picked and take less time to ripen at home. Fruit tastes sweeter, too, when it ripens on the tree. (There are exceptions: Pears and bananas ripen better off the tree). Not all fruit ripens after harvest. It may become softer, juicier, or less acidic, but its starches stop converting into sugar after it has been picked, so it's important to select good quality at the store. Fruits that don't ripen further at home include berries, citrus fruit, grapes, and pineapples. They must be refrigerated or they will rot.

Of the fruits that do ripen at home, some reach their peak faster than others, provided they were picked after what growers call the "mature green" phase. Common ones include: bananas, pears, peaches, apricots, plums, and kiwi. These fruits naturally emit ethylene gas, which accelerates the ripening process. Placing fruit in a paper bag and closing the top helps concentrate this gas, causing fruit to ripen faster. Bananas are particularly prolific ethylene producers, so if you enclose one in the bag with other ripening fruits, it will accelerate the process even more. Check them regularly, though, to catch them before they rot. After ripening, most fruits like it cold and humid. But they also need to breathe, so don't store them in a closed plastic bag. Open the supermarket plastic bag in which you bought the fruit before you place it in the refrigerator. Transfer fruits that need ripening into a paper bag, close the top, and let them sit at room temperature.

Those are the lessons i learnt while talking with the guys who hired me for their webdesign you can see above. One of the biggest fruit exporters down here in Spain. So, enjoy and eat fruit during summer.

Sorry for the lack of updates the last two weeks, NV30 was on holidays as you all may know. One of the reasons i went down to Ibiza was the wedding of my good friends Niko and Nadia. A Japanese couple born in Tokyo that i first met while working in El Divino 5 years ago. He wanted me to design his wedding webpage and i did what you see below. I love the photogenic these japanese couple are.

All the best , Niko and Nadia.

I wanted to marry Veerle a month ago but i am seriously considering it cause i am falling in love with Jennifer also. Let me clear my mind and let me choose correctly in a few days.

Graphic designers working on web projects often complain that when typefaces designed for print are set to lower sizes that they become harder to read and unattractive to the eye. Even using anti-aliasing (the smooth option in the Character Palette) is not enough to help these fonts look better on screen. The solution when this happens is to abandon the printer fonts altogether and to try using a Pixel font, which will produce a crisp, clean image at very small sizes. As my new fiancé said.

After three days trying to understand a little bit more about pixel fonts and the way i should use them in photoshop without anti-aliasing, playing around with tracking and kerning, i finally made up something clear (not customized yet) in flash. Something i like , something clear .... weird combination for me. Enjoy.

A flash design can be done in 90 minutes without too much photoshop and simple animations. A flash design can be done in 90 minutes being even funny. You can call a website however you want. My last job is for a ficticious webdesign agency i called "Boobs Studio". Enjoy.

My wife is from the east coast of Spain. I can drive to Valencia with my eyes completely closed cause 75% of 60.000Km our car has were done traveling there. That's not including 90.000Km done when we started going out together 11 years ago (with the other car we ... errrr... she owns now).

While driving last week (same happened while driving to Barcelona 2 weeks ago) i realized the amount of wind turbines populating our beloved Spain within the last 3 years, and i took that as inspiration for my last design. All this thoughts were done when she falled asleep from Km 30 to Km 320 in our last trip to Valencia. Pregnancy, my friends, pregnancy.

Well, you all know, a wind turbine is a machine for converting the kinetic energy in wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used directly by machinery, such as a pump or grinding stones, the machine is usually called a windmill. If the mechanical energy is then converted to electricity, the machine is called a wind generator.

Did you know that typical modern wind turbines have diameters of 40 to 90 meters and are rated between 500 kW and 2 megawatts? Did you know that the most powerful turbine is rated at 6 MW? Did you know that a turbine idea can be used in a webdesign also? Enjoy.

La cadencia de actualización de este blog está por los suelos este último mes. Soy consciente y asumo mis responsabilidades. Ayer contaba la razón principal, que unida a lo saturado de trabajo que estoy y un par de viajes a Barcelona durante la semana pasada en coche para hacer un trabajo inexistente y volver con el rabo entre las piernas a Madrid. Todo junto unido a las 13 horas de media que he pasado en los últimos días frente al ordenador hacen que las ganas por escribir no hayan sido tantas. Pero hoy si que entro a escribir para regalar algo.

Un regalo a mi prima Maria y a su marido , Xavi, por su reciente enlace matrimonial por aquellas tierras catalanas a las que reconozco que muchas veces me cuesta acercarme; pero eso es harina de otro costal de la que hablaré otro día, cuando tanto Estatut y Tregua de ETA // Juicio de algunos malnacidos con la sonrisa en la cara ( a los que yo en lugar de encerrar en la cárcel los soltaría por las plazas de los pueblos repletas de sus ciudadanos y cerraría las puertas con candado. Para mí sería muy fácil quitar la sonrisa de esas caras de eunucos que tienen los terroristas; despues sí, claro que sí, dejaría que se pudrieseis en la cárcel y yo tambien me reiría. Pero no me quiero desviar del tema) .

Para vosotros, María y Xavi, el último diseño. Enhorabuena por vuestro enlace. Una ceremonía acogedora y un banquete exquisito. Esto es para vosotros.

Seems like the most commented new within this week has been the Piratebay taken down by swedish police. Seems like some people have taken their own revenge. I would like to remember that exactly a year ago there was a hoax promoted by the guys behind piratebay to announce its redesign. Internet rules. We must admit that a year ago there was no video evidence. It is up to you , believe it or not. True or not, they got to the streets of Stockholm. My beloved Stockholm.

Internet Law encompasses all cases, statutes, and constitutional provisions that impact persons and institutions when they go online. Issues include free speech, intellectual property, privacy, safety, equity, jurisdiction, and e-commerce. The balance between First Amendment freedom of expression and copyright creates a problem which cannot be solved easily in the field of Internet Law. The Internet is a medium that promotes freedom of expression as an interactive service of communication and social interaction.

Perhaps one of the biggest issues in Internet Law is the ongoing disputes involving music piracy, or illegally downloading music files from the Internet. The music industry is involved in an intense effort to find ways to protect and license the use of music over the internet. In any case, go and get a lawyer, with the last flash design above.

I already talked about red , blue and orange while doing some webdesign. I guess it is time to do some mythbusting with pink.

In some cultures, such as the US ( i would say everywhere ), pink is the color of little girls. It represents sugar and spice and everything nice. Pink for men goes in and out of style. Most people still think of pink as a feminine, delicate color. I don´t think pink is queer. Pink is a softer, less violent red. Pink is the sweet side of red. It's cotton candy and bubble gum and babies, especially little girls.

Both red and pink denote love but while red is hot passion, pink is romantic and charming. Use pink to convey playfulness (hot pink flamingoes) and tenderness (pastel pinks). Multiple shades of pink and light purple or other pastels used together maintain the soft, delicate, and playful nature of pink. Add strength with darker shades of pinks and purple and burgundy. While red stirs up passion and action, studies have shown that large amounts of pink can create physical weakness in people. Perhaps there is a tie-in between this physical reaction and the color's association with the so-called weaker sex.

What about pink combinations?. All shades of pink get sophisticated when combined with black or gray or medium to darker shades of blue. Medium to dark green with pink is also a sharp-looking combo. So, with pink, the design above. Enjoy.

Within the last two weeks i have been playing around reading about "how to make a cake", and my head is full of funny sentences. Measure ingredients carefully, always use room-temperature, large eggs, unless recipes calls for other. Butter should be at room temperature. To calculate the width of the pan, measure across the top from inside edge to inside edge; shiny metal pans produce the best cakes; bake on center rack and don't allow pans to touch each other or wall of oven.

Unfrosted cakes can last up to 6 months if tightly wrapped. Frosted cakes should be placed, unwrapped on a foil lined cookie sheet, after this freeze until hard and then tightly wrap cake. Unwrap and then defrost in the refrigerator.

With some ingredients : Time, Macromedia Flash Adobe Flash (will never get used to this) and some music, i made my last cake you can see above. Enjoy.

Long time no talk about my daily work business trips, here in this blog of mine. Long time (considering we travel twice each three months) since my last home departure up to Sweden back in December last year. Wife was happy about it, she is not right now. Work takes me back to Dubai the day after tomorrow. 5 days outside home, back to Madrid on Tuesday next week.

Don´t expect too many updates within the next 5-7 days; i have more than enough with the cssreboot and the time consuming tasks updating one of my last projects you already know, Cssmania. Yay! . Being honest, I really don´t want to miss a single screenshot.

Someone asked me the other day how much time do i spend designing a template. Someone asked me the other day which kind of music do i listen to while designing in flash. Someone asked me the other day which kind of music do i listen to while actionscripting in flash. Here comes the answers to the questions, based in the design delivered some hours ago, that you can see below.

Basically, 65 minutes in the flash design part (with some of the objects included in the flash done from scracth), and 33 minutes in the actionscripting. Now, turn your head 90 degrees left and get the answer for the music i listened to in flash part (song 1 to 17) and the actionscripting part (song 18 to 26). Enjoy!.

Well, guess what? Things will start changing my life in 7 months time. 6 months and 3 weeks time to be more accurate. It just happened as it had to. Wifey and myself, we are extremely happy. Right now it is just 6mm long. So, have a look at my last design, cause it is time to celebrate it and get drunk. Daddy, daddy uhhhhh, daddy, daddy uhhhhh!

Like Joshua means something in my life in the flash business, Cameron means something for me in the CSS business. Like he does for Digital Web Magazine , A List Apart , Pmachine , Istockphoto. Well, yes, he turns me on. And as flash is all i know how to do well, something based on his last new portfolio, below.

By the way, who the fuck hasn´t talked about him today? Now i can say me neither.

With the potential rewards that can be gained (saving at least 15000Euros or more) by not having to pay a commission to someone selling your house, many people wonder why less than 20% of home sellers undertake the task of selling their houses on their own. Possibly it has something to do with expertise. Many home owners who consider a self sale of their house back off when they see the level of knowledge and commitment that is needed to do an effective job. If you decide, however, that self selling is the best option for you, you will find the vast majority of the information on this post to be of value. The most successful home sellers are those who take an active role in the process, whether it is as a sale by owner or a sale by an Agent. If you feel that the best route is to sell your home yourself, then having as much information at hand is crucial.

The Pros : There is no Brokerage Fee (commission) to be paid. You receive all of the proceeds (less marketing costs). This is, of course, the biggest benefit of selling your own house. You are in total control of the transaction. If mistakes are made, they are your own. There is no one else to make mistakes "for" you. You are always available at the home for showings, answering inquiries, etc.

The Cons : You must rely on your own instincts. All marketing and advertising costs are your own, which can be an expensive proposition. You must hunt for buyers one at a time. Without all the tools in hand, you may underprice or overprice the house. . Knowing how much your home can be worth is one of the first steps in beginning to market the property. If you are not skilled in negotiation, you may leave money on the table. All of the paperwork, legal forms, etc. are your responsibility and must be handled by you. If you want to give maximum benefit to your efforts, your free time will be somewhat or severely limited. Many buyers believe that if you are selling on your own and not paying a commission, it is they (the buyers) who should get the saving, not you. You must become knowledgeable of legal and financial issues to be most effective.

So, if you are in Madrid, and you have 396000 Euros you don´t know where to spend, if you want to spend it in a blogger's house in the north of Madrid (Alameda de Osuna), a totally luxury geek house with swimming pool, 2 parkings for you, wireless all over the place, T1 directly to your kitchen, you all know where to contact me. Included in the price ( xD ) i will give for free my last flash webdesign you can see above.

Let me copy & paste some text from Paul, well that's the actual Paul link, not the original Paul. My honest opinion is that Paul has changed a lot within the last 2 years, since he sold the dying CssVault as i mentioned in one of my last projects. But he explained better than me what i think about minimalism, just when he was the original Paul.

A website design should give users some kind of experience when they visit it. The design itself should give the site a personality all on its own. This personality however should not get in the way of the true purpose of a site, which is for the users to use. Minimalism allows users to use the site. It allows users to use the site through great usability and really does not cause the user to put much thought into what he has to do to get the job done. Once you add the word "design" to minimalist then you are taking things to a higher level. Minimalist design does not mean white backgrounds or two column layouts. Minimalist design means that everything on the page serves a specific function without hindering the users experience or getting in the way of the message that the site is trying to deliver.

The absolute most challenging thing is to do something simple. Because simple has to be perfect. If it's not perfect you see it a mile away. It's easier to create something complex.

And this can be also implemented using Flash, and that's what i have tried to do in this template. Cause i think white is the purest thing out there for design purposes. Enjoy.

Being married with a fashion designer is cool. Normally i do not have to worry about the way i dress. I am ugly, the ugliest in the world, i am sure about that. I wear anything i find in the wardrobe 20 minutes after waking up and having a shower, there is no problem, there is always something there that "mixed nonsense together" is cool for her. You can mix all the colours you want without being a queer popstar. That's the general rule.

Same as i have my AVN Awards, she has her NewYork Fashion Week. Same as i watch porn when i can, she does with fashion stuff with our satellite thingie. She understands fashion like this, i understand fashion like that. We love each other, that's completely true. She is for sure (forget about mothers, sisters) the most important woman in my life. 3 years married next 29th, and still loving each other as 10 years ago.

So here are two new flash designs as templates i have finished recently, her fashion taste above against mine below. Judge yourself, and go and get them before they vanish.

With the vast combinations of monitors and video cards that are available at a range of different resolutions, sizes and prices, it is not surprising that there is a large degree of variance in the general marketplace but graphic designers need to work to some reference standards just in the same way that audio engineers work within fairly strict specifications for their recordings. Apple Macintosh computers have been used within the print industry for many years and they have colour management built-in at system level. At the heart of every Mac is something called 'ColorSync' which allows input from scanners and output to colour printers to be viewable with a high degree of confidence on any attached monitor and, although not 100% foolproof because of the fundamental differences in RGB and CMYK, what you see on the screen is more or less what you get when you go to print.

Windows PCs are primarily designed as office machines for word processing, spreadsheets and database work. They are also very price-sensitive. So, there is very little standardisation of colour on monitors. An office PC is not a suitable tool for graphic design simply because you can't trust what you see on the monitor. That's not to say that you have to use a Mac to get accurate colour, in fact a Mac set up for print work is not really suitable for Web design at all. Properly adjusted, any computer and monitor can be used for Web design.

Regardless of the screen size or colour depth, a monitor should display a wide range of colours as predictably as possible, but colours are not always as they seem. If you look at a picture of a zebra in your living room at night and outside your front door at noon, you see the same black and white zebra. If you used a measuring instrument (a colourometer or densitometer) to read absolute values of black and white in these two situations they would be vastly different in colour value and intensity. In the indoor light, the white would warm because it is being illuminated by an incandescent tungsten lamp. Outside in daylight, the white would be much purer.

If you were to take photographs of the picture of the zebra under both conditions on slide film, the difference would be very apparent. When you look at it with your eyes, your brain compensates for the differences and you are almost unaware of the comparative warmth and coolness - called 'colour temperature'. Think of colour temperature as being the colour of a piece of metal heated in a fire. As the heat increases, it goes from dull red, to bright red, to yellow and finally to 'white hot'. There is another big difference in the readings taken from the zebra picture indoors and out. Outside the white will be very much brighter than indoors, in fact, the difference in brightness between the black and white will be many times greater. Black, is just the absence of light, it doesn't change as much as the intensity of light. The difference in intensity between white and black in any given situation is called the 'dynamic range'.

Okay, forget about zebras now and let's consider monitors. The black on a monitor can only be as black as the colour of the screen when it is switched off. You can't shine 'negative light' on anything - or bank robbers would have a field day! So, if your monitor is sitting in a brightly lit room, the colour of the screen - your black - will be brighter than if it were in a dark room. Sometimes you have no choice of working environment, but a dimly lit room is better for making colour and tonal judgements. The brightness of the white on your monitor depends on many factors, the type of tube, the efficiency of the phosphors and the monitors age. A new Sony or Mitsubishi-based tube will be very much brighter than an old shadowmask tube.

Unfortunately, a computer monitor doesn't behave the same way as the human eye when it comes to showing relative tonal values. If you were to display what you knew to be a 50% grey on the monitor, you would expect it to be exactly half way between the black and white in brightness, but it wouldn't be. To get it to appear to be exactly half way between black and white, the monitor has to have something called 'gamma compensation' applied. Instead of a graph plotting brightness between black and white being a straight line, it has to be a curve for all the intermediate tones to have the correct visual relationship.

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has decided that, for Web design, an intermediate gamma of 2.2 should be used. It is a good compromise between the 1.8 used in traditional graphics computers and the 2.5 of office machines. It is also the standard used for television production which hit similar problems many years earlier. So, in terms of W3C, to reach some kind of standard for viewing Web graphics on a monitor, we have to consider the Black, the Brightness and Colour Temperature of the White, the inter-relationship of the colours in-between, and the neutrality of the Grey.

Now guess, my last flash design above, has it been done considering all this?. GO and grab your own source of the files in the portfolio section. I am happy to have read it.

Maybe you've dreamed of gliding down the catwalk in Milan, flashbulbs popping all around, hundreds of people focusing their attention on your grace and beauty. The closets of your Paris apartment are stuffed full of expensive designer clothing, and tomorrow you fly back to New York just in time to catch a party attended by your good friends, Kate Moss, Keanu Reeves, and Ben Affleck. Nice dream. Now wake up.

First things first: you've taken the trouble to do a little research, so you're not a moron. That's good. Regardless of prevailing stereotypes, you need smarts to break into modeling. Those same smarts will also help you realize that your chances of becoming the sort of supermodel who lands multimillion-dollar endorsements are only a little better than your chances of being killed by a charging rhinoceros - even if you're beautiful. The success stories are few; even models represented by the best agencies in the world often take other work to supplement their income. Now, if you're still reading, congratulations. You aren't easily discouraged, and you're gonna need that kind of pluck to endure the rejection which is part of every model's stock and trade. There are several different types and levels of modeling, and if your expectations are realistic, you needn't feel discouraged.

There are many different kinds of models, including child models, plus-size models, and parts models (whose hands you see in all those diamond ring ads). Fashion models must usually conform to rather rigid physical criteria, but there are others models called "real-life models," who are often also actors. They are just what the name suggests: ordinary looking people used in catalogues and commercials to represent someone the average consumer can identify with. The white-haired guy with the potbelly on the Golf Resorts billboard is a real-life model. If it turns out that you aren't quite what they're looking for in a fashion model, consider this sort of work (or consider becoming a character actor). There are other paths to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

All right, so let's assume you've got all of these qualifications. You are, for example, a willowy 16-year-old girl who's on the basketball team, could squeeze her body through a set of prison bars, and causes old men who shouldn't be ogling you to stumble over their walkers. That's great. On top of that you have clear skin, perfect teeth, and your own brand of je ne sais quoi. Fantastic. Now is time for you to contact me and get for a few bucks a book of photos translated into flash. Enjoy what you see above.

Yesterday when i was writing about Web 2.0 sites and surfing through them, something caught my attention in 43Things; i am not the only one who wants to Clean the house and keep it clean. I try to help my wife when i can , and watching How clean is your house helps a lot at least to get some tips.

Use butter and sugar to clean and soften grease-stained hands instead of a harsh paint thinner, use a light sandpaper to dig dirt out of a table, and polish it off with a rag and some hand lotion, use vodka (a natural deodorizer) to sanitize kitchen cabinets and countertops (you can also have a couple of shots), use lemon juice and newspaper to clean shower doors, remove dust from a lamp with malt vinegar and newspaper, clean a germy shower with a water and bleach spray, use shaving cream on a bathroom mirror to prevent steam buildup, use salt and a lemon to remove tough grime from inside the washing machine, wipe a mirror using a coffee filter guaranteeing a streak-free surface. In the other hand , if you feel like lazy , you can always call a cleaning company , like the one i design the template you can see above.

Red is hot. It's a strong color that conjures up a range of seemingly conflicting emotions from passionate love to violence and warfare. Red is Cupid and the Devil. A stimulant, red is the hottest of the warm colors. Studies show that red can have a physical effect, increasing the rate of respiration and raising blood pressure. The expression seeing red indicates anger and may stem not only from the stimulus of the color but from the natural flush (redness) of the cheeks, a physical reaction to anger, increased blood pressure, or physical exertion. Red is power, hence the red power tie for business people and the red carpet for celebrities and VIPs (very important people). Flashing red lights denote danger or emergency. Stop signs and stop lights are red to get the drivers' attention and alert them to the dangers of the intersection. In some cultures, red denotes purity, joy, and celebration. Red is the color of happiness and prosperity in China and may be used to attract good luck. Red is often the color worn by brides in the East while it is the color of mourning in South Africa. In Russia the Bolsheviks used a red flag when they overthrew the Tsar, thus red became associated with communism. Many national flags use red.

Use the color red to grab attention and to get people to take action. Use red when you don't want to sink into the background. Use red to suggest speed combined with confidence and perhaps even a dash of danger. A little bit of red goes a long way. Small doses can often be more effective than large amounts of this strong color. Multiple shades of red and even pink or orange can combine for a cheerful palette. Cool blues provide contrast and tone down the heat of red. Light pinks and yellows are harmonizing colors that can work well with red if not too close in value such as dark red with a pale or golden yellow. Be careful using purple. It can be an elegant combination but too much could be overpowering. With this concepts of red, enjoy the design above.

When it comes to understanding colors, blue is one of my favourites. Blue is calming. It can be strong and steadfast or light and friendly. Almost everyone likes some shade of the color blue. Blue is a natural color, from the blue of the sky, blue is a universal color. The cool, calming effect of blue makes time pass more quickly and it can help you sleep. Blue is a good color for bedrooms. However, too much blue could dampen spirits.

In many diverse cultures blue is significant in religious beliefs, brings peace, or is believed to keep the bad spirits away. Blue conveys importance and confidence without being somber or sinister, hence the blue power suit of the corporate world and the blue uniforms of police officers. Long considered a corporate color, blue, especially darker blue, is associated with intelligence, stability, unity, and conservatism. Just as seeing red alludes to the strong emotions invoked by the color red, feeling blue or getting the blues represents the extremes of the calm feelings associated with blue, i.e. sadness or depression, lack of strong (violent) emotion. Dark blue is sometimes seen as staid or stodgy old-fashioned.

A deep royal blue or azure conveys richness and perhaps even a touch of superiority. Navy blue is almost black and is a bit warmer than lighter blues. Combine a light and dark blue to convey trust and truthfulness banker's colors. Although blue is a year-round color, pastel blues, especially along with pinks and pale yellows suggest Springtime while deep blue is a colder weather color. Create a conservative but sophisticated look with subtle contrast by combining light and dark shades of blue. Mix the color of blue with green for a natural, watery palette. Add gray for understated elegance. Sky blue and robin's egg blue, especially when combined with neutral light brown, tans, or beige are environmentally friendly color combinations. Throw in a dash of blue to cool down a hot red or orange scheme. Grab attention with the contrast of blue and yellow. Dark blue with white is fresh, crisp, and nautical. Red, white, and blue is a patriotic color trio for many countries, including the United States. Use dark blue with metallic silver accents for an elegantly rich appearance. That's what i have done in the design above.

Apart from a GSM Operator driving me mad in my daily job, Orange is vibrant color. It's a combination of red and yellow so it shares some common attributes with those colors. It denotes energy, warmth, and the sun. But orange has a bit less intensity or aggression than red, calmed by the cheerfulness of yellow. As a warm color orange is a stimulant , stimulating the emotions and even the appetite. Orange can be found in nature in the changing leaves of fall, the setting sun, and the skin and meat of citrus fruit. Orange brings up images of autumn leaves, pumpkins, and (in combination with Black) Halloween. It represents the changing seasons so in that sense it is a color on the edge, the color of change between the heat of summer and the cool of winter. Because orange is also a citrus color, it can conjure up thoughts of vitamin C and good health.

If you want to get noticed without screaming, consider the color orange, it demands attention. The softer oranges such as peach are even friendlier, more soothing. Peachy oranges are less flamboyant than their redder cousins but still energetic. In keeping with its transitional appearance in nature, you might use shades of orange to indicate transition or a bridge between two opposing factors. Orange is often synonymous with autumn yet the brighter oranges are a summer color. Use shades of orange for seasonal-themed fall or summer materials. Orange is mentally stimulating as well as sociable. Use it to get people thinking or to get them talking. While orange and black are traditional Halloween colors, orange really pops with a medium blue. Red, yellow, and orange can be a fiery hot combination or, in tamer shades, a fresh, fruity experience. Make it tropical with green. Use caution mixing orange and pink unless you want to recreate a vibrating, 60s psychedelic look. Try a dash of orange with deep purple or a dash of purple with a bit of orange, tempered by lots of mellow yellow or white for an eye-catching look that's not overpowering. With orange, check the design above.

Since i have been writing in this blog i always had a question, that's the reason of the last flash design you can see below. Here it goes : Why is my mind making a relation between sushi & geeks? . Do i have to be a geek if i like eating sushi? Can i eat sushi without being geek? Do all geeks eat sushi? Well, honestly, i dont like sushi, and yes, i guess i am a geek.