Finally a year after getting the domain, here I am writing the first post for this blog. Over the years I have been trying to keep up with a blog and never kicked past the first few posts. However this time around things are pretty serious, priorities has shifted and the urge to write about the things I love has never been stronger.
So who am I? I’m Shafraz Faiz, a designer from an enchanted island called ‘Sri Lanka’ and I specialize in areas such as UI Engineering, Web Design, Graphic Design and Corporate Identity. Up until the beginning of this year I was working as a Creative Director for Breeze Design Studio, a US based design firm, headquartered in Detroit, MI. It’s been well over 3 years since I started out and I have come to realize that I miss the good old days of designing and living my life as a designer rather than spending most of my time on phone calls, meetings, schedules and what not, but I have to say running a design studio was quite an adventure. So here I am once again trying to live my life the way I want, and while I am at it I’ll be making notes of my learning experiences and share it with you through this blog.
What’s under the hood?
First off I would like to share some insight on how this website came in to existence. Design Eternity houses the Eternity Blog and the DE Portfolio. I wanted both to have some degree of separation when it comes to the backend, while carrying the same visual look and feel. Since my expertise only spans until the frontend development, I had to seek assistance for the backend.
For the Eternity Blog I had no doubt but to go with Wordpress, because it’s simply one of the best open source blog platforms out there, and I briefly know my way around themes and customization. After I got a fix on my layout and design, I thought it will be easier to find a theme that closely matches my design and to do the required design modifications.
After browsing though some interesting compilations of Wordpress themes I stumbled upon the 55th Street theme by Tammy Hart Designs on Specky Boy Design Magazine. To my surprise it was a perfect match and with a few tweaks on the design, colors and typography profiles, along with a bunch of widgets I was all set. I have to say Tammy has done a brilliant job on the theme, sporting a stylish grid based design and excellent typography, it just spells out perfection.
As for the DE Portfolio I was a bit skeptic on using Wordpress merely because the platform is way too complicated for a simple portfolio showcase. That’s when I came across a post on Heavy Backpack, featuring 5 CMS solutions built specifically with artists and designers in mind. After some digging I picked out Core CMS by WeAreAstronauts I have to say it was a delight to work with Core CMS, I was simply stunned by how they eloquently put together such powerful features in to one simple content management system.
Hats off to Tammy for the 55th Street Theme and WeAreAstronauts for the Core CMS, you all just made my day!
What’s in store?
Now that everything is up and running, next stop is to update my DE portfolio and also keep this blog happening. As for the Eternity blog I will break down my experiences into hands-on instructional posts, inspirational notes, etc in areas such art, technology and design. So that you can cut to the chase and jump right into making it happen.
So keep an eye out for this blog and feel free to join the conversation!