Archive for the 'Graphic Design' Category

Vegetarian, Raw, and Vegan Web Badges

Published on 2009/01/10 in Blogging and Graphic Design. 6 Comments

What if there was an effortless way to let people know that you were a vegetarian, vegan, or even raw vegan?

An idea practically hit me over the head on Sunday. What if people could share their nutritional choice in a supportive, yet unobtrusive and attractive way? I wondered why anyone hadn’t tackled this design challenge before. Over the thousands and thousands (millions?) of web pages I’d seen in my lifetime, I’d never seen anything like the idea in my head. Thus, the Powered by Plants badge was born.

Leafy Choices

CommentLuv web badge

The basic design for the graphic was already in my head, but it would take graphic design skills + patience to create something attractive and universal. I decided to follow the design style I started when I created the CommentLuv badge for Andy over at ComLuv.com, a truly excellent plugin for Wordpress and other blogging systems. The difficult part was deciding on what kind of leaf to use. At first, I experimented with some kind of 7-pointed leaf, but something didn’t quite fit… so I opted to use a broader leaf. The result is something that reminds me of a bay leaf.

Spread the Word about your Conscious Choice

Powered by Plants Vegetarian, Vegan, & Raw Vegan badges

Whether you’re a macrobiotic eater, fruitarian, vegetarian, raw vegan, or normal vegan, these badges are a snazzy way to spread the word about your conscious nutritional choice. If you use one of the badges, I would very much appreciate you spread the love and link back to the Spread the Word page so that others can get a Powered by Plants badge that matches their own nutritional choice. Spread the word that by making conscious nutritional decisions, we become healthier creators. If there’s an -ian or -gan that you like for your own site that I haven’t included here, please let me know in the comments.

Checkout the Spread the Word page to choose a badge!

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Post-publishing note: Thanks to Weight Management & Fitness Forum for including this article in their carnival.

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New Widescreen Wallpaper – Charamandala 1

Published on 2008/12/31 in Creativity, Graphic Design and Wallpaper. 0 Comments

Today, this last day of 2008 AD, and before the year ends, I’d like to share with you something that’s been incubating since September.

Artistic Incubation

As I’ve often hinted at in the past, when creating something non-urgent I often start a project, complete more than half of it, and then forget about it for a few months. This kind of artistic incubation can be beneficial because when I return to the project, I return to it with fresh eyes, and see problems and possibilities that I didn’t see when I first created it. This process is also recommended for authors, that they should write an entire first draft without looking back and then let the first draft sit without looking at it for a few months.

Continual First Draft

Often, new authors will continually, some might say obsessively, revise the first chapter of their book only to never complete a first draft at all. This kind of resistance is something that all creators tackle. Once a first draft is complete, I tend to stow it away and forget about it for a while. It’s possible that this forgetting allows my unconscious mind to work on the problem in the background for months. However it works, I know that it does work.

After I’d created the logo for this website in July, I decided that, as a design element, it might work well as the central focus in a piece of visual art. So in September, I started experimenting. And today, I’m happy to present the fruits of my efforts.

What’s Not in a Name?

Charamandala 1 preview

See that white symbol in the top center of this page? That’s the Charamandala—the unique logo for Byteful Travel. The name is a conjugation of two words that are quite old. Chara means joy in Greek, and mandala is from the Sanskrit word mandalam, which means circle. (Note to the seeker, there is much to learn about mandalas. Recommended research.)

I’ve dubbed this wallpaper Charamandala 1, because I suspect this won’t be the last desktop wallpaper to feature the charamandala. Charamandala 1 comes in aglow and deep versions and is available in widescreen or fullscreen sizes.

And feel free to let me know what you think.


Recommended Reading:

  1. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Ocean of Twilight
  2. New Widescreen Wallpaper & Be A Mind At Play
  3. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Crystal
  4. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Sight Indigo
  5. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Indigo Island
  6. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Crescent Nightfall
  7. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Liquid Lazuli