After 22 (23 now) blog articles written on ptahdunbar.com, I think I’ve finally got a feel for what I want to write on this blog. See, after choking a couple of times in the past with writers block and other distractions, I didn’t think I’d be able to start yet another blog and stick to it. This is a major milestone accomplished and I’d like to congratulate myself for that :). My articles are bringing in more than 4,700+ page views (since Feb.) according to mint. I’ve only been blogging for about three months which is an all time high!

Same Goals

It feels great staying on task with my original plans for the blog. As far as writing how to’s, practical guides and advice like I originally intended on doing, my focus is a little narrow at this point. Currently, that focus is on WordPress, case studies coming from my projects and the newly, client work. Since this blog is fairly new, I made the decision to focus only on a few topics before I go off and talk about other stuff like web applications and whatnot. Down the road, I’ll be adding new categories to talk about some more interesting things. I’ve got a lot of plans with WordPress and I love writing about my thoughts and processes for projects I pursue. It’s all about the experience! Which is why I like keeping my work as transparent as possible. This will also help me down the road when I become successful trying to figure out what the hell I was thinking when I was younger! Overtime, I’d like to further elaborate more on how I go about creating all these super cool blogs and websites (in the future, applications and more).

Blog Design

It’s only been a few months since I first launched this theme WP Generic and I don’t like it anymore. It just doesn’t feel like me. It feels cold, and unpersonalized. I’m trying not to be too harsh, but I can’t ignore this. Originally, I planned on launching this blog with Ptah Dunbar 2008, but changed my mind during the last few minutes before going live. I thought about this decision a lot which turned into this term I’d like to coin, Grow Theory if that doesn’t exist (more on that in another article). I have a future version of this theme to further enhance how it looks but I’d be going in the wrong direction if I continue with this theme. I’m making adjustments to fix this problem with a new redesign I’m coming up with. After the redesign and adding a few enhancements, I’ll be giving this theme away for those interested. I’ve been getting my design freak on lately reading graphic design books and magazines trying to get these awesome creative ideas out of my head and onto paper and digitally so that should be very apparent in the new design. Hopefully throughout the new design, it’ll express more of my needs and personality while still being flexible.

For the redesign, I’ve been thinking about a dark, clean, vector style, tropical, colorful look if that makes any sense.
Color scheme and possible imagery will be primarily based off my heritage, Puerto Rico (red, white and blue) and Jamaica (black, green, and yellow), and maybe even dab of orange sprinkled all around. The design will be very colorful and awesome looking but not too overpowering on the content. Sounds like an interesting concept eh? Again, this looks awesome in my mind, I just need to communicate these ideas correctly through Photoshop and Illustrator.

Plans for launching the redesign will hopefully be before FOWD because I really want to show off my design skills and what I’ve got when I meet other designers over there (that’s if I can go of course). While the current theme is simplistic and clean, it doesn’t do my design skills any justice and that’s not acceptable.

Trying not to concentrate too much on my blog’s design, I’ve still got a few unfinished projects that I need to finish like the bloggingtips.com redesign, web dev work at my job and some freelance work on the side. Oh, I almost forgot studying for midterms, I was told they’re suppose to be pretty hard.

I’m in the market for a DSLR Camera

Along with a few purchases like a tripod and extra memory which I still have to do some more research on.
I’m currently looking at some top quality DSLR cameras for product reviews (books), self-portraits and capturing quick motion shots. Cannon and Nikon are the only two brands that I’m considering. I’m thinking that a 30-50 prime lens should do the job, but I’m open to suggestions.
The main feature that I’m looking for is crisp picture quality (10+ megapixel) because I’m going to be doing a lot of cropping and editing. My 2.0 megapixel camera on my iPhone (without flash!) isn’t cutting it. So if you have any recommendations, your comments will be rewarded!

Services and Collaboration

With the new design rolling up or before, I plan on adding a “services” page to offer my web design and development skills up for an extremely affordable price. While I still plan on doing some freebies down the road from time to time, I still gotta pay the bills! Included within that page, I want to throw up some copy to inform other web designers and developers that I’d like to collaborate with them as well as I know how overwhelming our jobs can get.

Specialist in Redesigns

As for everyone else, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. While I probably could offer a broad set of services from creating complete websites to SEO (Search Engine Optimization), I’m only offering redesigns. It’ll allow me to focus more on what I like doing which will ultimately produce better, quality results. Those still insisting on using me for other services can be requested via the contact form.

And finally

Once I get the new design up for this blog, I’d also like to update my about page to reflect the changes.
I’ll be highlighting on my collection of books I’ve got sitting in my room too which should serve as an interesting photo of me. Until then, I’ve got about 8 more or so books waiting to get adding to that stack ;).

When I get some final drafts mocked-up, I’ll be sure to post another update about it. Before then, I’m going to be starting, releasing and collaborating on new projects and client work that I’ve got cooking in the kitchen, I can’t wait!