Click here to download the wallpaper.

Skills Used: XHTML, CSS, Javascript, WordPress and Photoshop

URL: http://katiescaninekitchen.co.uk/ http://katiescaninekitchen.co.uk/shop/

Skills used: Photoshop

Anyway, I will be updating the portfolio accordingly – once I have done the site / page. Just thought you’d all like to know….

thanks all at Kerrang and all the people involved! I look forward to doing the page now

Smokefree West Midlands has teamed up with Kerrang! radio to invite 17 – 24 year olds to enter in the ‘Clear The Smoke’ design project, entries can be made by individuals into either category or indeed into both, a winner will be chosen from each category and prizes awarded as below.

My inspiration was from my own personal childhood (both my parents and siblings smoked). I not only had lacking health (not solely down to them smoking but it was a contributing factor) but I got bullied a lot due to the way I smelt at school (note to parents… stale cigarette smoke is not something that smells nice!)

The Competition

(read more about the competition here)

I decided to take it upon myself to design an entry for Brief 2 – Web Competition.

Find my entry below:

Click to view

Facebook, twitter, myspace… these are now household names. Just last night at dinner, my fiancée’s family and I were discussing Facebook status updates (from my fiancée’s mum through to her 14 year old cousin). It is a wonderful tool enabling us keep in contact with friends, colleagues and family (both near and far) and to share our opinion with the world (even if it doesn’t want to hear it) but, it also has its bad side.

The news has been full of stories where university students have faced consequences for what has been posted on Facebook, and people posting slander about their bosses and colleagues…

Just Google “slander boss facebook” and the results just come flooding in…
Google “oxford facebook students” for the other prime examples…

I use Twitter, Facebook (updated mostly via my twitter and a Facebook app) and I have a MySpace (yet it is really not used) and because of that, I have a lot of “following, friends and followers” but the other day, one of the people I follow posted what I would term “questionable content”. It featured swear words and their employer’s name within the same tweet, and this provoked the following question:

As we are all individuals we have a right to say what we like, but should companies monitor / regulate what their employees say about (or involve) their company?

Creating a strong corporate identity is about creating an identity for your company that reflects every aspect of what it does, from the first point of contact with the customer to how employees feel about the organisation / company. As a freelancer, I am very aware of what I do online under the alias “vivilanco” (as well in my full time employment) and I have taken extra care not to post obscenities or discrimination on any of my social networking sites.

I know as the owner of vivilanco.com that I would never want any employees denting the identity that I have taken time, effort and love to build up but should employers regulate how their employees use social media?

I choose to leave this question open and I welcome your comments…

Skills used: Photoshop (web will incorperate HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and a JQuery based shop)

Skills Used: XHTML, CSS, Javascript and Photoshop

URL: http://wedding.vivilanco.com/

I know a few people are “what’s the point of that?”…

Well… a wedding website enables us to capture RSVP emails, also make announcements about the wedding to friends and relatives (and is also a great source of advertising for me as well as a potential route to market later)…

It’s a great way to let those nearby or abroad know about your wedding date and details, who will be in the wedding, and what to expect. We can post our piccys on there from events and, stag / hen parties as well as the big day. It’s just a great tool within the arsenal of our planning…

Admittedly, not all the areas are working at the moment on the website but it will be at the end of the weekend!

(the techy bit… behind the scenes)

There are LOTS of wedding website vendors out there… a lot of them offer quite a lot of functionality that is well worth the investment, but me being me (and a designer) I figured I can make a solution to fit our needs without making it overly complicated.

The backend is CMS driven, a little open source CMS called RUUBIKCMS. Its created by some folks in Finland, and is quite a powerful CMS considering it doesn’t use a database… that right, its free standing! That’s just what I needed as I didn’t want to spend any more of my precious SQL databases (I only have about 90 left… I know that’s a lot but still).

So either way, I have a big thanks and thumbs up for RuubikCMS and I will be using them in the future!

Me out.

The ice was so solid, i was able to turn the net upside down and the ice stayed there. (more pics below)