New Blog Design

Upon arrival home from Alt, I immediately signed up for a Wordpress 101 Class from Nicole's Classes. Wordpress is a blog platform, similar to the one I'm using now, Blogger. Nicole's Classes offers on photography, branding, photoshop, illustrator, designing your website in wordpress, and lots more. I had been looking for a blog design class, so once I found out about this one I jumped at the chance. 

Little did I know that I would be learning HTML and CSS! I've only had experience in photoshop and for some reason I thought that I would be working in a "Wordpress" program since that was the title of the class. However, I'm super pleased to be learning these skills as they can be applied to any website/blog, not just wordpress. But here in lies the problem: I'm literally dreaming in HTML and CSS code! I can't get it out of my head! After almost exclusively working on it all day yesterday, I woke up early to dive in to it again. It's so exciting! I love that I'm able to design in photoshop, write html code, then style it using CSS. I still have no idea what I'm doing, but it's like a puzzle with rules to follow, you just have to figure out how to get the rules to work for your design. I'm close to solving my puzzle, but not quite yet. 

I'm really loving the class and the teacher is excellent! I highly suggest taking a class if you're at all interested! 

Here's my color palette:

 And a little peek into what I'm attempting to design: 

{Still deciding on the logo...}

I'm also having a friend of mine, Darcy Dubose, illustrate some elements for me. I'll keep you posted, but I hope to have the redesign finished soon, but for sure by the end of February. 

What do you think? I'm open to critiques as I'm such a newbie! 

Alt Summit // Videos & Pinterest

Either you are sick of hearing about Alt Summit or you're hanging on every word! If you'd like to hear more, here's your chance to see a few videos! The first one is by Tiger in a Jar, they did a beautiful job of getting a sneak peek into the Alt experience, aka: being treated like a movie star!  Truly, that is the only way that I can accurately describe it!

The mood of Alt Summit from ALT Summit on Vimeo.

Ben Silbermann, founder of Pinterest, received a standing ovation for his heartfelt speech. Make a cup of tea and check it out for yourself. 

Ben Silbermann Keynote Address at Alt Summit from ALT Summit on Vimeo.

Quotes that inspired me: 

• "Be known for the things you make."
• "Surround yourself with people that do what you want to do."
• "People succeed, because if they don't stop something eventually breaks."
• "If you don't bet on yourself, no one else will."
• And this picture pretty much captures it all! 

This is pretty much how many of us feel. I know that I have lots of new goals and dreams, but my terror/fear holds me back. The biggest take-away for me at Alt was to don't be afriad to chase after my dream. It won't come to me, I'll need to go after it! 

What might that dream be? It's so many things wrapped into one. But mainly being a full-time blogger/designer. Those titles are so broad and that is what I'm working out right now, I'm opening different doors, trying on every hat, and seeing what fits!