Peeking Behind the Scenes

I’m aware from the outside looking in, things have been pretty quiet here. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes, though. I thought I would give you a peek at some of it.

Part of it is obvious. I have a different website layout. I like this one better and I hope you do too. It will also be easier to add things that are coming very soon. Those things will make it a bit more of a website and not just a blog. Here’s a little heads-up: There might even be a members-only section.

Another visible change is my logo. I’ve simplified it and now it’s just my initials in script. It’s elegant and I love it.

I tried several different variations, including the purple initials on an orange paint-splash background that you might have seen. While I like that one, it doesn’t really fit me, so I decided I had to change it.

In the meantime, I started having some computer problems. One night, I was shutting my computer down and going to bed. The next day, I didn’t get on my computer at all. Then the next day, It kept giving me an odd error message and wouldn’t even let me try to log in. After I panicked (after all, I was in the middle of editing RealmWalker: New Beginnings), I did a search on YouTube using the error message as my search terms. I found how to fix it! I figured out how to start my computer in safe mode and that’s all I had to do! It didn’t finish installing the updates, so when it started in safe mode, it automatically installed the updates and has been working fine since.

Until…. OK. Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.

The next thing I’ve been working on is a mood board. This includes the colors, patterns, lifestyle photos, and ideal customer icons that I feel drawn to. This is what prompted the logo experimentation. You can see where some of the inspiration came from.

One variation of my logo that you did not see was an orange J and purple N. Ultimately, that really did not look good together in the way I wanted the letters to be joined. That’s why they’re all one color.

I started working on a brand style sheet after the mood board, too. But I got stalled. For one, the style sheet is more involved than the mood board was. For another, I aggravated the inflamed tendon in my wrist (and am now typing with a brace again) and had to slow down. But the biggest reason?

Again, I couldn’t log into my computer. Something was going on that was auto-filling any text box that came up, including my PIN number and/or password. I called in reinforcements. I talked to my brother who used to work in IT. He got me logged in. I opened Microsoft Word and it started filling line after line after line with 1s.

At that point, I talked to a cousin who works in IT. He told me something to do — remove the battery. Well, there was a problem. This computer doesn’t have a removable battery compartment, so I couldn’t do that. Frustrated, I called Staples. They said bring it in the next day. I unhooked it and hooked up an older computer. I connected everything to it. And it started doing it again!

Aha! It wasn’t the computer. I disconnected my ergonomic keyboard. And it quit autofilling with 1s. I had a stuck “1” key! Although, to look at it, none of the keys were stuck. I had another ergonomic keyboard, so I reconnected the original computer and put the newer keyboard on it. It works like a charm.

And now I’m ready to show you the style guide. I show you this for several reasons. One, doing this and the mood board really solidified some things for me in what I want to do and why I do what I do.

Two, I want you to see what some of the things are that I think about while working on this website revamp. In the past, I would seriously just make changes as they occurred to me without thinking about how it would effect the whole. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.

Third, I want you to know that if you’re stuck on something you want to do, maybe even something you’re currently working on, taking the time to slow down and do a mood board and style guide for yourself could be beneficial. At the list, it could help you figure out some new inspirations.

And fourth, I wanted to let you know that there really have been things happening. It’s just not always visible.

Oh. Speaking of visible. There is another visible change, but so far it hasn’t been uploaded here. I think I’m going to put it here, though. Right now, it’s on Twitter, my Facebook page, and YouTube. It’s this:

And with that, I’m going to end this post. It’s gotten kind of long, but I feel like it needed to be.

Happy creating!

P.S. In case you’re wondering, I did all of this using Canva.