Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, Dad. That’s a big number! It makes me feel just as old when I think “Wow, my dad is that old, and…” =)

Also, Happy Birthday to India!

Indian Flag
(Image snaffled from Nav A)

Midnight, August 15th, 60 years ago saw the birth of 2 nations, today the three “South Asian” nations of India, Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) and Pakistan (formerly West Pakistan). Out of the slowly crumbling British Empire they emerged, and from that day the fall of the remainder of the empire was a mere inevitability.

But the fall of the British Empire is not what is celebrated here; indeed, it is the emergence of the new nation of India. It wasn’t just independence from 90 years of direct British rule – it encompassed independence from foreign rulers that stretched back, variously, to the 13th century. Finally, Indians would rule their nation for themselves.

If there was a price to pay for this, it can  be boiled down to the bitter pill of partition. Whatever the politics behind it, the millions upon millions affected – my family included – didn’t want it. To this day, it is one of the most shameful periods of the history of a people that have so much in common, save religion. Indeed, to this day it remains a sore point, and, in Kashmir where the lines of a map don’t make much impression on the lofty mountain ranges, a source of conflict that drags on both countries’ abilities to do anything about social welfare. It is an exercise for the speculative fiction writer to ponder what may have transpired in a unified India incorporating the “partitioned” states.

Today, many problems remain, and are prevalent. It is something that needs working on, but for once, we can say there is clear hope. India is unmatched for growth upside, and finally is punching its own weight on the international scene. I’m not usually a nationalist or anything like that, but for today, I am Indian :)

Recapturing the Vibe

A lazy weekend morning; walking around aimlessly and yet intently; a warm summer afternoon, the cricket on the radio; sumptuous brunches, dinners on par with what your mamma made for ya; ignoring the responsibilities and chillin’ with friends; a birthday barbecue stretching well into the night with new & newer friends, the chatter (and drinks) flowing freely.

Truly, this is what weekends ought to be made of on a regular basis.

Monopoly Tour!

I remember playing Monopoly as a kid and thinking, “I’ve so got to visit all these places one day…” (what, no-one else?)

And now I’m here in London. And those streets on the Monopoly board? They’re real!

I know, I couldn’t believe it either. So I got my faithful Google Maps out and mapped it. And I’m going to tick it off one by one while I’m here =)

I’m not going to go all out and do it all in one day – that would be a pointless waste of time, right? But I am going to connive situations which land me near one of those spots, and whip the camera out to take evidence. Oh and look around too so next time I play, I know what I’m playing for.

The tour has begun! Check out my flickr monopoly tag =)

The Prototypes

Just thought I’d show three of the designs that (nearly) made it.

Ubermorgen

This first one went through three revisions itself – pushing the sky on the left? horizontal? on the right? – before I found the genius idea of putting it between the content and the sidebar. And then I looked at it and thought, “wow, that’s so…. white….” and I really couldn’t figure out where to put the colours into it. Interesting design exercise, though.

For some reason, I called the design above “ubermorgen” (“very morning” in German). I have no idea why.

bw

This one was a lot more straightforward naming – “b+w”, and was one of those ideas that sounds really quite good in my head, but just doesn’t translate to paper (or screen, as it were). Again, my issue here became that if I introduced any colour, it would throw things off. I liked the little stripes I had going there though, as well as the translucent sidebar. Maybe in another life.

Vert

This, I think, was just about the shortest-lived design I had, as evidenced by the lack of any lorem ipsum in the content. I called it “Vert”, as the whole thing just seemed to want to scroll (maybe I should’ve called it “scroll”?). Again, an idea that worked really well in my head, but just didn’t quite pan out when I played around with it. It was all well and good to have the Really Big Textâ„¢ on the home page, but when you got to the content, it was a distraction, big and bold – so the title would have to translate to a smaller, horizontal one, and then you lost the branding impact.

And finally…

 stripe

Out of the ashes of “Vert” was “Stripe” born. I played with the design a little, giving the giant header a black background like you see on the side of this design. And then, to make the colours mesh, I had to play around a little… and then the blue stripe emerged out of somewhere, and suddenly we were cruising, or at least on a path I liked. I dropped the orange in the title in favour of simplifying to a 3 colour primary palette, letting the brand define itself. Et voila, pushing the sky, version 4.

Version 4

It’s rough around the edges, and it’s nothing fancy, but dammit, it’s mine. I’ve learnt WordPress during the building of this theme, and that should make me proud.

(except for the part where it doesn’t matter that much in the long run)

I’ve still yet to figure out where to put the sidebar stuff, or if I’m going to stay with the asides in their current format, to the style that I did once upon a time. Or if I should introduce colours, effects and all those fancy things that generally are completely useless to the blog. What this does for me though is refocus: it gets the blog back to its basic purpose, which is to carry a message.

Inspired a little by Subtraction, assisted a little by innumerable WordPress themes, indebted to the brilliance of XRAY, the result of about 4 discarded designs which were way too busy, I hope this makes me a little more involved because it was my own product.

Completely untested outside the Mac. I’ll have to look at it in IE at work tomorrow.

Lemme know what you think! Remember, this is raw 0.1 stuff, so it’s open to assault and rework.