New Design Look

In refining my site I first considered the visual appeal of the overall design and then researched colour trends in web design and logos for inspiration to confirm my desire for a simpler, cleaner website style. I changed the bright colour of the background to a textured neutral grey scale to highlight accents of magenta and orange. I switched the theme to a magazine style so that a snapshot of recent posts gave a glimpse of the content and coloured images immediately on opening the site. In choosing my design the main consideration was to highlight the written content and for it to have a clean, clear unadorned layout with ease of navigation yet remained colourful to reflect the content.

Tickled Pink now appears as a bright colourful site with a larger pink title, header bar and contrasting description typography with an added logo image. There is a contrasting pink date ribbon and post title in the same font as the header bar on a clean white background.  The large pink icons were added to the bottom of each page in line with current trends for larger size social media buttons.

Updates were made to the link list, Blogroll, reading list, popular posts, and other widgets.  My avatar was moved to the bottom of each post as a signoff and is also at the top of the hidden widget sidebar and in two relevant posts on my personal writing.

My choice of platform and theme restricted some key aspects of my site due to the header, widget and footer areas being disabled from alteration with CSS and html. I took this into consideration in my choice and decided that the 'look' I was after outweighed the restrictions and I have successfully adapted the site to cover all aspects I wished to feature. Lastly, I changed the Tickled Pink title so my logo is closer to the typography and I changed the description to # Colour Design. Feel free to email me or follow me on twitter or Pinterest. Until my next post Cheers Diyu

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

(With the exception of the Avatar Image)

© The Avatar image is copyright to Ramneek Narang All Rights Reserved 2013

Many thanks to Ramneek Narang and  Grant Williams Stevens for the images on this post.

       

Colour Trends

In response to Logos and the Psychology of Colour 1/2/2013
I enjoyed your article on the psychology of colour and share the same view that the start of any business is fun and the lure of the blank page is enticing. Knowledge of colour psychology I also agree is a necessary skill in the design process and your list of colour meanings I found comprehensive and helpful. 

I would like to add, of equal value is the role of colour trends and forecasting. We can choose colours to convey a message, evoke a mood, persuade or attract viewers and customers but the colour choices if relevant to our current political, cultural and financial climate will provide clues to future popular colours. By being aware of global trends and looking to the future we can be are assured that the colours we choose will be popular and appealing for at least for 4-5 years. There are several key groups in colour forecasting with an abundance of information available such as 

Colour Marketing Group, Pantone or Colour lovers.  CMG is an International Association spread across 20 countries whose members are professionals from all industries involved in profitable marketing. The CMG’s main service is in identifying future colour trends through forums and colour workshops and the non competitive sharing and exchange of colour design influences, merchandising industry contacts and interpretation or predictions of colour trends. To borrow from CMG’s own logo - "colour sells and the right colour sells better". Until next time  Cheers Diyu 

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

(With the exception of the Avatar Image)

© The Avatar image is copyright to Ramneek Narang All Rights Reserved 2013

Many thanks to Ramneek Narang and Design Inspiration for the images on this post.