The Four-eyed Journal » Design

Redesigned Harry Potter book covers

jhay — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:04:28 +0000

As a book lover, I was overjoyed to have stumbled upon this blog: The Book Design Review by Joseph Sullivan.

It basically showcases some of the most fascinating and wonderful book cover designs to hit bookshelves. I later realized that this is a whole new industry on its own.

One of the most interesting posts is this feature about alternative design covers for the best-selling series Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling.

A sample of which I’d borrow and present below:

Alternative cover for The Order of the Pheonix

This is designed by M.S. Corley and takes inspiration from the look and feel of classic Penguin Books.

Compare it to the printed version we all know today:

The cover we're more used to

Of course the alternative designs are not used in the published Harry Potter books today, but who knows right? Someday, when all the hype and craze about Harry Potter dies down, the books might be reprinted and graced by these wonderful design covers.

More redesigned Harry Potter book covers by M. S. Corley could be found here. What do you think?

The Credit Crisis Visualized

jhay — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:22:11 +0000

Even with all the available material and references available on the net, most of my friends and classmates still wonder about how the current world economic crisis started. The simple explanation to this is that those references and materials that explain the inner workings of the current credit crisis are, to be honest, not easily digestible by the ordinary folk.

In Filipino slang, “nakaka-nosebleed basahin!”

Well, thanks to Jonathan Jarvis from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California we can now understand the on-going credit crisis through visual media.

And here’s part two

Awesome animation and explanation of the credit crisis. I just hope someone could translate this into Filipino so that more Pinoys could further understand the current economic crisis.

One point of observation though, and this would open a new door for opportunities and discussion, the video never explained nor mentioned why the homeowners started to default on their mortgages.

Blog updates 3.08: theme reboot, roller-coaster ride & privacy policy

jhay — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:43:34 +0000

This past two weeks has been a roller-coaster ride for me. Even as the school year comes to an end, schoolwork has always kept me from blogging like I used to. Still, I have little to no regrets as the times I was able to blog were times put to very good use and noble causes. The previous posts on this blog is incontrovertible proof of it.

Anyways, let’s get on with this blog update post so as to clear things about the latest happenings to the this blog.

Theme reboot

Finally I achieved the Problogger.net look and feel! I may not be the problogger, but ever since Problogger.net had a major theme update, I could not help but say that the new design and layout was perfect. In my search and even purchase of WP themes, I’ve always used Problogger.net as a basis, looking for something similar to its layout and approach. Because it’s simply damn works!

First I tried on that WP_Premium theme by by R. Bhavesh and WP Remix. A day or so afterwards, I tried on the Forte theme by Moses Francis and stuck with it until this past weekend. That’s when you suddenly saw a new theme, based on the Copyblogger theme by Cris Pearson. I modified it a lot to achieve that ‘Problogger.net’ layout and feel. Plenty of space for the main content while keeping the essential elements close by.

I chose the Copyblogger theme because of it’s awesome and powerful typography. The image and blockquotes styles are simply elegant and beautiful. But I wanted to customize the theme even further, sadly though, my CSS skills are not yet up to the challenge so commissioned the help of Miko of Build that Geek, a promising and talented blogger/designer from Davao to bring to life what I had envisioned for my customization of the Copyblogger theme. Later on, I’ll probably release it to the public in case I do not, once more switch over to using it on this blog. So watch out for that everyone.

What’s really strange is I’m using another different theme right now and you’re wondering ‘what gives?’ Like what I said earlier, I’ve finally achieved the ‘Problogger.net’ layout and feel, all thanks to this awesome and powerful theme, Structure by Justin Tadlock. It’s awesome because of it’s looks and layout. I just tweaked the CSS to change the colors to taste, and very powerful because the theme can be customized without that many efforts or complications. Because 80% of the theme’s front page is widgetized allowing users to move around many blocks of content or uses to achieve their customized look and functionality.

Of almost all the ‘premium’ WP themes out there, Structure is among the best and it’s free! I’ll be talking more about how and why I customized this theme in the next coming days. For now, let’s move on.

My very own privacy policy

You may have known by now and you’ve probably complied with it by now, but I’ve finally posted by very own Privacy Policy as required by the recently updated Google AdSense TOS or Terms of Service. Yes, Google is now the true overlord of the web.

PinoyBlogero has a nice post about what the heck’s a ‘privacy policy’ is and how to make one so that you’d be in compliance with the new AdSense TOS. Honestly though, I used Jensense’s sample template to create with my own AdSense TOS-friendly Privacy Policy. The automatic Privacy Policy Generator was just too complicated for me to use. Jensense’s version is a lot easier to use and customize for each of our own blogs, we just copy it and fill-in the blanks with our blog’s name/url and other info and you’re all set.

That’s it for this blog update, if you have comments, questions or suggestions about the my theme please let me know via the comments thread below. For all you fellow bloggers who use AdSense, it’s time to update or create your very own ‘Privacy Policy.’

Check out mine!