ROAR BEFORE THE MARCH MADNESS Chapter 2: AARGH...
February 2015. For ordinary people, it's nothing. For me, however, it's something. A very tradition of mine, February is the month where I check out two of the events worth watching: Bathurst 12 Hour and Fall/Winter Fashion Week. No Oscars for me unfortunately, and I facepalmed continuously whenever I think about Screen Actors Guild Awards. I mean, Orphan Black win one of the awards in the TV category and I wasn't even there! But, this month is where everything's brand new, like this very LJ you are seeing now. Fandom Warrior has received a makeover it deserves, and thankfully it's done just before FMM will start in a couple of days! Although I have to despise myself for one of the things later on this post.
Jandal-ing Mount Panorama then Going Down the Fashion Week Hole
(GT Academy)
Bathurst 12 Hour endurance race is known for more than just one thing: if it isn't known for racing cars zooming around Mount Panorama from the break of dawn until afternoon with all the close-fought position battles, it is known for having John Hindhaugh and his crew commentating like crazy, in a good way that is. Sounds Scottish, but aside from his accent, he KNOWS well how to put great commentaries. The racing in the event was very competitive even though I disliked how too much Full Course Yellows were done, and finally the Nissan GT-R, a car that succeeds Nissan Skyline's DNA (the Godzilla), finally reclaimed back its victory in Mount Panorama after years without winning. All done by the hands of three courageous race drivers with attitude: Katsumasa Chiyo, Wolfgang Reip and Florian Strauss. The first name took the chequered and is a professional race car driver, and the other two are actually gamers turned into racers. That's right, video games can take you THAT far with proper supervision. You can check my blog for more Bathurst 12 Hour, or even check out the race by yourselves if you're curious.
But somehow I have developed three... *ahem* split personalities for the past years since the first time I'm introduced to internet. First up, my racing personality who aspires racing cars and even dreams about getting into Le Mans 24 Hours someday, and then my fandom personality who is drawn to the world of fandom culture even though that I'm awfully known for being unable to binge at max. Finally, my fashion personality whose personality is developed starting from watching a certain modeling competition show, and then digging deeper to find out that that modeling competition has an international franchise and then going very deep to the very point where I am now drawn into fashion weeks and Paris-thin runway models as well, to an extent I let out my inner Murray Walker for the currently-running Fall/Winter Fashion Week on Twitter. I did state my fascination to runway models and fashion weeks in one of my previous posts, but for this year, it's getting uncontrollable. My fashion personality has overidden all others as the fashion week goes, and due to that unfortunately I spent my time more on trying to get some good materials needed for commentaries of the current day in the fashion week than I do other, usual things like some game stuffs and site redesigning. I had to open a spreadsheet program of mine to count each model's shows in every city, of course with a help of certain sites as references: the Fashion Spot and models.com. Unfortunately, the real reason why all my projects, including my blog posts, did come to a halt is because models.com's Runway Rankings doesn't update at a rapid pace. I remember stressing out on tallying New York Fashion Week while models.com was yet to make an update, but from that point on I learned more things in the art of doing calculations in a spreadsheet program.
Russian model Kate Grigorieva for Dolce & Gabbana (Nowfashion)
Seeing tall and thin models strutting their stuffs on blue-chip shows in top fashion capitals of the world does have its price which is, as stated, all my projects. Not all projects however as I actually managed to do the LJ Makeover I have promised.
CSS Sprint Race
Enter the new Fandom Warrior!
Just hours after posting the "Redesign Now Commence" post, 80% of the redesign plans have been completed, particularly the blog appearance in general and the header image, as well as the navigation menu which gives an illusion of it being one with the image. Theme colors and logos fit the brand well, which took a very long consideration. The logo itself is inspired by Samurai, a figure of Japanese swordsmen in the Warring States period. You can clearly see the first letters of my blog's name carved on the helmet very well. The reason why I chose the Samurai theme is because I wanted to embrace the word "Warrior" more, which explains why it is chosen as the motif, but somehow after tons of Japanese culture stuffs I have consumed, I chose the Samurai motif over the Knight motif which should also work. It's just that the Samurai helmet tackled the symbolism even better than the Knight helmet, and that I am focused on that one thing. Even I added the slogan you can see in the header because, well... I have a long history of enjoying the fandom culture in out-of-the-box way such as putting TV and movie characters' names in a racing game with AI editing capabilities you have seen in my last year's FMM post, which is here in case you haven't read it or as a refresher.
The colors. Well, I had difficulties at choosing colors; on one side, I wanted a yellow / orange base with blue accents or vice versa, but my heart says otherwise and told me that yellow with blue might not the blog's cup of tea. In fact, using those colors would only dub the blog as a ghost of a fandom festival in my own country that has never held; it did state that the festival would take place last year in August but due to an unknown circumstance the festival was cancelled. Having decided red and white with black accents as the colors to go, the rough blueprint began to take place, featuring Lorem Ipsum paragraphs as the testbed. I even used the blueprint to see whether the font faces I would use fit well in the final design. Speaking of the font faces, I initially wanted a combination of Bebas Neue, Roboto and Trebuchet MS but unfortunately Bebas Neue doesn't seem to be available in CSS form so I looked for alternatives until I found one that fits well: Alegre Sans, which is enough to act as the main font that plays part on the blog title, post titles and sidebar titles. Roboto meanwhile is the font used for headings and post bodies that fits blends well, but to make sure it does blend well, I chose the light version to make sure it doesn't steal anyone's thunder. And those two fonts are the ones used in the final design, and sadly I have to drop Trebuchet MS from the list as I felt that the font isn't on the same mood as the aforementioned two. In the end, I don't want any more custom fonts to make sure my blog loads at better speeds.
Coding the CSS was a trial-and-error where there were times I screwed up the custom CSS design several times. That was when I was sweating hard, but after hundreds of attempts, the designing went well as expected. That said, Fandom Warrior now goes with two colors with one as an accent, not to forget various shades of white and black are used for certain elements, and to make sure you don't jump in to strange conclusions, the accumulative number of shades used doesn't reach 50. Also, please take note that only the main elements meant to be visible that were revamped at the moment, granted that the Comments element also had this treatment. Instead of a default classic, the more modern approach was taken. Alas, a gray box with a bottom border of red strengthens its design. I don't know why but my mind said that the Comments box's color could be made white so it would loosely follow the post title design. Other things that I would address is the "Current Mood / Music / Location" element but I guess I better leave them as it is; I don't use them very much, save for the Mood.
Last but not least are what could be considered as a nice twist: Sidebars! On your left side, you can see the links to my other social media accounts and my main blog (represented by icons!), my favorite TV Series I'm following very much (I know, just a few, but they're still my faves anyway), my favorite characters (some of them aren't even characters; there are one to two real-life entries there), and some creations I contributed anywhere, to the point that I even include the link to my game add-on site because I don't have any fan fiction and fan arts yet (but isn't deviantART a media for fan arts already?). Other than that, you can also see the calendar. I could proceed with tags et cetera for some time.
So the mountain racing is done and the Fashion Week is now on its climactic phase, and that I have fulfilled my promise of redesigning my LJ before FMM starts. Finally, bring on Fandom March Madness AND TV Couples March Madness!
~[R]
Jandal-ing Mount Panorama then Going Down the Fashion Week Hole
(GT Academy)
Bathurst 12 Hour endurance race is known for more than just one thing: if it isn't known for racing cars zooming around Mount Panorama from the break of dawn until afternoon with all the close-fought position battles, it is known for having John Hindhaugh and his crew commentating like crazy, in a good way that is. Sounds Scottish, but aside from his accent, he KNOWS well how to put great commentaries. The racing in the event was very competitive even though I disliked how too much Full Course Yellows were done, and finally the Nissan GT-R, a car that succeeds Nissan Skyline's DNA (the Godzilla), finally reclaimed back its victory in Mount Panorama after years without winning. All done by the hands of three courageous race drivers with attitude: Katsumasa Chiyo, Wolfgang Reip and Florian Strauss. The first name took the chequered and is a professional race car driver, and the other two are actually gamers turned into racers. That's right, video games can take you THAT far with proper supervision. You can check my blog for more Bathurst 12 Hour, or even check out the race by yourselves if you're curious.
But somehow I have developed three... *ahem* split personalities for the past years since the first time I'm introduced to internet. First up, my racing personality who aspires racing cars and even dreams about getting into Le Mans 24 Hours someday, and then my fandom personality who is drawn to the world of fandom culture even though that I'm awfully known for being unable to binge at max. Finally, my fashion personality whose personality is developed starting from watching a certain modeling competition show, and then digging deeper to find out that that modeling competition has an international franchise and then going very deep to the very point where I am now drawn into fashion weeks and Paris-thin runway models as well, to an extent I let out my inner Murray Walker for the currently-running Fall/Winter Fashion Week on Twitter. I did state my fascination to runway models and fashion weeks in one of my previous posts, but for this year, it's getting uncontrollable. My fashion personality has overidden all others as the fashion week goes, and due to that unfortunately I spent my time more on trying to get some good materials needed for commentaries of the current day in the fashion week than I do other, usual things like some game stuffs and site redesigning. I had to open a spreadsheet program of mine to count each model's shows in every city, of course with a help of certain sites as references: the Fashion Spot and models.com. Unfortunately, the real reason why all my projects, including my blog posts, did come to a halt is because models.com's Runway Rankings doesn't update at a rapid pace. I remember stressing out on tallying New York Fashion Week while models.com was yet to make an update, but from that point on I learned more things in the art of doing calculations in a spreadsheet program.
Russian model Kate Grigorieva for Dolce & Gabbana (Nowfashion)
Seeing tall and thin models strutting their stuffs on blue-chip shows in top fashion capitals of the world does have its price which is, as stated, all my projects. Not all projects however as I actually managed to do the LJ Makeover I have promised.
CSS Sprint Race
Enter the new Fandom Warrior!
Just hours after posting the "Redesign Now Commence" post, 80% of the redesign plans have been completed, particularly the blog appearance in general and the header image, as well as the navigation menu which gives an illusion of it being one with the image. Theme colors and logos fit the brand well, which took a very long consideration. The logo itself is inspired by Samurai, a figure of Japanese swordsmen in the Warring States period. You can clearly see the first letters of my blog's name carved on the helmet very well. The reason why I chose the Samurai theme is because I wanted to embrace the word "Warrior" more, which explains why it is chosen as the motif, but somehow after tons of Japanese culture stuffs I have consumed, I chose the Samurai motif over the Knight motif which should also work. It's just that the Samurai helmet tackled the symbolism even better than the Knight helmet, and that I am focused on that one thing. Even I added the slogan you can see in the header because, well... I have a long history of enjoying the fandom culture in out-of-the-box way such as putting TV and movie characters' names in a racing game with AI editing capabilities you have seen in my last year's FMM post, which is here in case you haven't read it or as a refresher.
The colors. Well, I had difficulties at choosing colors; on one side, I wanted a yellow / orange base with blue accents or vice versa, but my heart says otherwise and told me that yellow with blue might not the blog's cup of tea. In fact, using those colors would only dub the blog as a ghost of a fandom festival in my own country that has never held; it did state that the festival would take place last year in August but due to an unknown circumstance the festival was cancelled. Having decided red and white with black accents as the colors to go, the rough blueprint began to take place, featuring Lorem Ipsum paragraphs as the testbed. I even used the blueprint to see whether the font faces I would use fit well in the final design. Speaking of the font faces, I initially wanted a combination of Bebas Neue, Roboto and Trebuchet MS but unfortunately Bebas Neue doesn't seem to be available in CSS form so I looked for alternatives until I found one that fits well: Alegre Sans, which is enough to act as the main font that plays part on the blog title, post titles and sidebar titles. Roboto meanwhile is the font used for headings and post bodies that fits blends well, but to make sure it does blend well, I chose the light version to make sure it doesn't steal anyone's thunder. And those two fonts are the ones used in the final design, and sadly I have to drop Trebuchet MS from the list as I felt that the font isn't on the same mood as the aforementioned two. In the end, I don't want any more custom fonts to make sure my blog loads at better speeds.
Coding the CSS was a trial-and-error where there were times I screwed up the custom CSS design several times. That was when I was sweating hard, but after hundreds of attempts, the designing went well as expected. That said, Fandom Warrior now goes with two colors with one as an accent, not to forget various shades of white and black are used for certain elements, and to make sure you don't jump in to strange conclusions, the accumulative number of shades used doesn't reach 50. Also, please take note that only the main elements meant to be visible that were revamped at the moment, granted that the Comments element also had this treatment. Instead of a default classic, the more modern approach was taken. Alas, a gray box with a bottom border of red strengthens its design. I don't know why but my mind said that the Comments box's color could be made white so it would loosely follow the post title design. Other things that I would address is the "Current Mood / Music / Location" element but I guess I better leave them as it is; I don't use them very much, save for the Mood.
Last but not least are what could be considered as a nice twist: Sidebars! On your left side, you can see the links to my other social media accounts and my main blog (represented by icons!), my favorite TV Series I'm following very much (I know, just a few, but they're still my faves anyway), my favorite characters (some of them aren't even characters; there are one to two real-life entries there), and some creations I contributed anywhere, to the point that I even include the link to my game add-on site because I don't have any fan fiction and fan arts yet (but isn't deviantART a media for fan arts already?). Other than that, you can also see the calendar. I could proceed with tags et cetera for some time.
So the mountain racing is done and the Fashion Week is now on its climactic phase, and that I have fulfilled my promise of redesigning my LJ before FMM starts. Finally, bring on Fandom March Madness AND TV Couples March Madness!
~[R]