You can view the demonstration here. *Right Click* to view the page source. For your ease of use, I have commented the css to help you along your way. Enjoy!

So this is a long time coming. I meant to post this over a week ago, but I forgot and then started to put it off once I remembered.

I have a job with Rockfish as a designer. I had been interning there for several months and started full time on the 9th. Rockfish is located in Rogers, AR, or at least the branch that I work at. The company is growing very fast and has been accomplishing some incredible things. You can checkout the lastest news at their blog.

It took me some time, but I finally feel comfortable here. I am getting to know some incredible people. It is quite the transition from student to fulltime. Time feels lacking now. I do hope I learn how to balance my social and work life soon. I am moving into, what is hopefully, a long term stay at the 9th street duplexes in Rogers. That all happens this upcoming week.

Anyway, I have been given some great projects to work on. I’ll let you know when those projects roll out, until then it is *hush* *hush*.

The Lord has blessed me, this is for sure. However, I am earnestly trying not to keep this blessing for myself. For “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” It is easy to say that we are “poor” in America, but I fear that is a great deception on our part. I hope not to sleep in the American Dream any longer but to rise as a child of God.

“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent,nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” And how can we rise with Christ if we do not act in his love by doing what he has done and asked us to do?

“Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.”

However, I did not come to know Christ that way. I heard of him and was taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. I was taught, with regard to my former way of life, to put off my old self, which was being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of my mind; and to put on the new self, created to be like God, not to be God, in true righteousness and holiness.

That is why I must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to those around me, for we are all members of one body. In my anger I must no longer sin or still be angry once the sun sets, lest I give the devil a foothold in my life. I who stole, must no longer steal, but must work, doing something useful with my own hands, that I may have something to share with those in need.

I must not let any unwholesome talk come out of my mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And to not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom I was sealed for the day of redemption. I must get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Instead I must be kind and compassionate to others, forgiving each them, just as in Christ God forgave me.

The time has come to where I must say good bye to my fellow interns at Rockfish Interactive. The 10-week internship ends officially this evening. While I may get the chance to see those that live in the area again, Krisna MacDonald (Creative) and Vina Zerlina (Front-End Developer) will be heading back to their out-of-state homes this weekend.

It is remarkable how quickly one can make friends in such a short period of time. It has been an enjoyable experience with them all. I am sure to miss the laughs we had while encouraging one another through our hefty project.

Now to present the RFI Intern Titles, along with a brief bio…

John Michael Cox
It seemed as though without fail, John (account manager intern), would inch his way toward my desk everyday to tell me something completely random or hover over my shoulder and pretend to criticize my work. Full of dry humor that few understand, John is granted the title of “Quirkiest Intern”.

Krisna MacDonald
An enjoyable guy to be around, Krisna was my creative buddy while at Rockfish. The biggest struggle we faced while interning was our attempts to talk to one another around or massive monitors. Loud and full of stories, Krisna earns the title of “Life of the Party”.

Vina Zerlina
Vina was the front-end developer on our little intern team. Quiet but fierce in her work, Vina was cursed with having to deal with all the interns issues with the interface design by herself. That is why she has earned the title of “Z-ina, Warrior Princess”.

Camille Malkiewicz
Camille, our other account manager intern, was unfortunate in being given a desk in the middle of everyone’s way. Almost everyone had a hand in playing little pranks on her or poking fun at her. However, she would not go down without a fight. Swift come backs are in her blood. She also quickly asserted herself as the team leader and made sure we were all on task. Both fierce and motherly, that’s why she gets the title of “Mother Bear”.

Prafulla Kota
I am pretty sure Prafulla (one of our intern developers) ate, slept, and drank code. More than once Prafulla found herself stressed beyond belief but still made it through the mountain of work before her. She justly deserves the title of “The Incarnation of Code”.

Abdul Asim Abdul
Abdul (our other developer) had to code his was through a mountain just like Prafulla, except one difference: facing the wrath of Prafulla, lol. Although I am uncertain in the matter, I am fairly sure Prafulla and Abdul were, more than once, at each other’s throats when stress levels got high on the project. Either way, I would not want to be in Prafulla’s way when things got out of hand (jk -lol). That’s why Abdul gets the title of “The Fearless Coding Ninja” “The Dragon”.

While that was all for fun, I now want to take a serious moment and thank my fellow interns for a job well done. Congratulations and thanks for all your hard work. It was really great to get to know you all.

I have been working on a new emblem for myself. I will still be using the classic “C“ logo, but I wanted to have a character I could do more with. I drew up the character on a piece of paper and finally got some time to make a digital version of him. The only thing left to do is give him a name. I was thinking “Webnaut” but I am not entirely set on that name. Any suggestions or critiques?

I chose to be a designer, but I was not chosen to design. How quickly I forget my purpose while immersed in work. Yet, what point is there of toiling through my labors if I am no longer conscious of my purpose? I might as well be as one who sleeps. The moments that I am most conscious of my purpose are the moments I find myself the most alive.

The American Dream is parading through me, but that is all it is, a dream. A dream in which I am being coaxed into sleeping. I work to get stuff and I am convinced that this stuff will make me happy. And maybe it does make me happy, but that happiness is short lived. I hand over Everlasting Joy for my small highs of happiness.

Jesus once said that, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.” I must stay prudent in living beyond the work that I can do.

Overall, I am really satisfied with the feel I developed. Oh, you can even take a look at the roughs for this project if you wish.

Why is this applicable?
Suppose you are using WordPress and you want to add your logo to a theme. By default WordPress adds something like the following code:

<div id="headerimg">
<h1><a href="/">Your Blog Name</a></h1>
<div class="description">Description</div>
</div>

And instead of having Your Blog Name you want to have your logo. Well, you can do that all through CSS. This same technique is great for replacing plain text with images for menus.

First the CSS and then I’ll explain.

#headerimg h1 {
background:url('images/logo.jpg') no-repeat 0px 0px;
display: block;
height: 0px;
padding-top: 40px;
overflow: hidden;
width: 220px
}

The Explanation
So in order to do this all through CSS we need to add a background image that is aligned to the top left or 0px 0px. We want this image to be displaying as a block so that we can mess with the height and width. The height we are setting to 0px because we do not want to have the words Your Blog Name to be showing up on top of our logo. Instead we will use padding to change the height of the container to the size of our logo image. Make sure to make the overflow set to hidden so that the blog title does not show up underneath.

Why not just add an image?
Images are great and all, but this way is helpful for search engines and browsers without CSS support. When CSS is disabled or not read the words Your Blog Name still appear in both search engines and CSS disabled browsers. You could use the alt tag to put the name of your title in, but when images are not displayed the typographical hierarchy is lost.

Well that it for this tutorial. I’ll hopefully be adding an addition to this later on for CSS menus that will include rollover states.

I am currently working on my final project for Graphic Design IV. In this project I will be creating a brand image for a coffee company of my choice and will also be designing both the liquid and dry packaging for the coffee. I chose to create a company called French Press. The idea is sort of comical in that I will be playing off the idea of Bench Press.

Before I chose this design concept, however, I had 2 other concepts to narrow down from.  The class and professor agreed that my French Press idea would be the best to work with. Although Jawa Java was a pretty funny name. I might go ahead and design that package set anyway. Below are my 3 concept roughs. Let me know what you think.

These don’t look finished

During the brainstorming stage of my design I try not to get caught up on making things perfect. I focus on developing feels and throwing together ideas that will work as great solutions to the problem at hand. From the brainstorming and conceptual work I go on to making roughs for the concept work. After the roughs are completed and I have received thorough critique, I go on to fine tune my designs.

I have already begun work on both the liquid packaging and dry packaging for the company. I’ll post those images later.

Some Negative and Positives of the Show
I did not get much feedback on my work. I love to hear critique and suggestions from others as they provide me with room to grow. If you never come across conflict or opposing views then you never get a chance to grow or learn anything new. Even so, I am glad to have the show out of the way. The semester is coming to a close, graduation is coming up soon, and it is a relief to have my portfolio class completed.

The Future
My internship at Rockfish Interactive is coming soon! I cannot wait to start. I am hopeful that Rockfish will fit well with what I want to do in design.

The New Look
After the longest identity crisis of all time, I finally lightened up my design and added some color. I’ve never really made a left aligned site, but I am pretty satisfied with the results.

What is Coming Up
Tutorials, Tips, Tricks, Apps, and more designs! Now that I am close to a month away from being a professional, I have decided to share my new found knowledge to the world. Stay tuned and learn some great stuff.

I hope you all enjoy the design. Feel free to give some constructive criticism, compliments or whatever you like.