Effervescent Refractions » Web Design

Refracted

Stephane — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:53:03 +0000

It’s time for a heart to heart. This place hasn’t seen serious action in a long while, it verily is embarrassing. I could soliloquize about the preoccupations that kept me away, but I’d rather move forward and announce that the Reflections are being retired. The format felt laborious, I just wasn’t comfortable. Twitter and Tumblr – which might as well be called Tweedledee and Tweedledum – tell me I’m not alone. So he we are, retooled, renamed and ready to roll. Effervescent Refractions is what I call my experiment, season 2 if you will. Almost Frankensteinian, though not as abominable, it’s part tumblelog, part lifestream, almost micro-blogging but with some old-fashioned blogging thrown in. Grabbing content from Twitter, Last.fm, my photography and reviews, this thing is updated so often it’s almost scaring me.

“Refractions?” I hear you confusedly clamor. ‘Effervescent‘ still seemed apt, but since I was aiming to be less reflective, ‘reflections’ really needed to go. As reviews take a more prominent position here, I hope I can act as a prism, offering a different angle or elucidating particular subtleties. Obviously I’m taking some liberties with the academic definition of ‘refraction’, but I think it fits.

On Web 2.0

Stephane — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:46:14 +0000

Jean Cocteau, among the many things he is famous for, said the following:

“Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.”

I believe his statement relates remarkably to the Web 2.0 phenomenon and the monstrosity it has spawned within the web design world. Blogs, Ajax, tag clouds, RSS, wikis, all that stuff is fab.ulo.us. The technology itself is pushing us forward and I couldn’t be happier about it.

Our problems begin with the confusion between the underlying attitude (because Web 2.0 is just that) and the visual design that naturally arises from it. Now if web designers are making that confusion, we’re in for some serious trouble with the audience, which in demographic terms, is becoming wider every day. What I mean to say is, for the sake of the savvy and unsavvy alike, don’t equate this technology with the gooey, glossy, blobular trap that so many are falling into.

Five or ten years from now, I don’t want to be remembering Web 2.0 as the ’80s of web design, neon colored bloated parachute pants and all. The visual design of today is simply a passing fashion, don’t be one of those sites we’re ashamed to look back at, like the GIF-swollen examples of 1996.

There’s More!

Stephane — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 17:55:06 +0000

My recent work on the Effervescence zenphoto theme got me in the mood for a little CSS coding but I got somewhat carried away and wrote up an entirely new version of the blog. Despite concerns regarding the light on dark format, I decided to take this route because it is one I have seldom explored. However, I will almost certainly work on an inverted color scheme as an alternative. So here it is, officially, version number four of Effervescent Reflections!

Regarding the typography, I have continued using Arial as the primary typeface which I personally find to be the most readable option at this size. I’m glad to see others agree. On the other hand, I opted to drop Trebuchet which has been faithful to me for years, but is suddenly becoming the Web 2.0 workhorse and I prefer to retain some individuality. The result was therefore a slight retooling of title fonts using even more Arial (I prefer to stay out such things as sIFR). It’s in times like these that you realize true works of art can be as subtle as an on ne peut plus simplistic typeface.

Effervescence Release

Stephane — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 13:09:26 +0000

After the thugs from the zenphoto forums coerced me in a back alley and took turns beating me with a golf club, I wholeheartedly agreed to release this theme. So here it is.

Effervescence is a rather simple theme which I originally created for my own use, deriving the work I had done on my blog. What you see here is a cleaner version with a new color scheme which can easily be modulated. One important feature and central component is the randomized header on the index page. This is a cropping from photos chosen at random throughout the gallery always cutting a central chunk. This may result in curious images as the focal point is not necessarily in the center of your pictures, but I have found that it is nonetheless a neat effect. With a bit of knowledge in CSS and HTML zenphoto makes it really easy to bend this theme so it suits your needs.

Check out the Demo and/or Download.

Update: I’ve been a bit lazy with keeping the theme up to date, luckily the zenphoto community has been very helpful. Take a peek at the official wiki for the latest and greatest on Effervescence.

Gongle?

Stephane — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:14:47 +0000

Of the many special logos created for Google over the years the version displayed at Google.fr for the Quatorze Juillet (Bastille day) is the first that clearly read “Gongle”. Gongle. It sounds a bit naughty.

Effervescent Gallery

Stephane — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 09:07:04 +0000

Yesterday I put the finishing touches on my other creative project on the web, what I now call Effervescent Gallery. My goal was to take what previously was disjointed addendum to the blog, and infuse it with a certain continuity. I decided to retain Effervescent Reflections’ color scheme and font structure but reshape it to expose the distinction between the two sites. Working with color is always fun to me, the content in this case allows perhaps more creativity than I usually concede to myself with text-based sites because I generally feel a pressure to use the most readable conformation. As a result the colored backgrounds provide, to me, a cohesion that operates as an independent and unique body, but echoes what my shared users will find here.

One functional addition I made to the gallery is the randomized header found on the front page. Using the fantastic zenphoto, I am able to take a random image from the gallery and apply automagically a uniform cropping. The consequence is that some images are more appropriately trimmed than others but always spark some curiosity, which I think is a great way to compel the viewer to explore unexpected parts of the site.

New in the Top Bar

Stephane — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 18:38:15 +0000

If you’re a perspicacious individual, you may have noticed some changes in the menu bar - notably the introduction of a new section which I have dubbed “Currently“. In an effort to separate my activity elsewhere on the web from the musings I propose here, I have created a page that groups my latest conceptions and engagements in selected domains. For now these mainly relate to beer and music, but I have plans for a few more headings. The beer section will ostensibly be updated every Sunday as a result of my newest ventures in fine ales. If you follow the links to RateBeer, you’ll find a little more depth in the evaluation of each brew. Even if you don’t, I would still recommend browsing around the site as you’re always sure to learn some trivia there. The “Recently Played Tracks” are updated live by the magic of Audioscrobbler and Last.fm, which I can only applaud and urge you to visit (if you haven’t done so before). I hope to integrate some pictures from my gallery as soon as Tristan gives us the tools to do so. Meanwhile I’ll be statically updating my current desktop screenshot. As usual, all this tends to look better in Firefox, and I have yet to test it in Safari. Give me a shout if you see anything odd.