How Seigaiha was born

It’s probably the most difficult theme I have ever designed. Finding the motif was the easy part. I discovered seigaiha months ago while I was at the supermarket. The packaging for this Japanese-inspired bread was so unmistakably nanyate-esque, I knew I had to make a theme out of it.

But because of the change in my design philosophy, I had a very hard time conceptualizing it into a theme. I wanted my theme to be unique yet functional, but didn’t know how to merge them…

…until one day, the idea bulb finally switched on. The answer was typography; typography is the key to marrying design to function. It can improve readability, yet it is an art in itself.

Unfortunately, I am no David Airey. To be honest, I don’t know anything about typography. All these years I just stuck to basic sans serif fonts because everyone else uses it. So I scoured the ‘net for weeks to see what the experts used. Then, I stumbled upon Mohd Huzairy‘s Extreme Georgia.

Who knew that Georgia could actually be so beautiful? I was always under the impression that serif fonts were all old and dingy like Times New Roman. But Georgia’s sophisticated, rustic feel was the perfect companion to seigaiha’s ancient Japanese roots.

But something was still lacking; the design just lacked a certain va-va-voom. Then I came across The Netsetter. The concept of its design was simple: big, humongous type that improved readability.

So with seigaiha as the motif, Georgia as the type and The Netsetter’s gigantic font size, Theme Seigaiha was born.

Still in Beta Mode

With that said, it’s still in beta mode. Here are some outstanding issues:

• Not tested on IE yet
• Not validated yet
• Lifestream not customized yet. For now I’m using WP Lifestream as a stand-in.

So, what do you think of the new theme? And it’ll be great to let me know if you spot any errors (aside from the ones I’m fixing). Thanks!

Related posts:

1. New Theme For Spring (Alpha)!
2. A Revolution in My Web Design Philosophy
3. New Theme: Torii (Alpha Release)

Not that it’s going to look revolutionary or anything; it’s my design philosophy that has been revolutionized.

For the longest time I struggled to find an answer when asked “why do you blog?”. I have neither extraordinary insight nor life to share with the world. And then it hit me. I didn’t start out on the web by blogging, I started out on the web by designing. The past 11 years of blogging had just been an excuse for me to adorn the web with pretty colors.

For the past 11 years, I was trying to create the prettiest, most original-looking blog. So I tried to never draw inspiration from other websites but from different mediums like anime, fashion, culture etc. I would mull over concepts and colors for weeks, consulting various color theory books, sketching 100s of variations, before I decide to photoshop a prototype and ultimately code it.

A lot of times, this design philosophy served me well and ended in some recognition.

But the last 11 months has changed all that for me. Overseeing web design and development work at an enterprise level has taught me to appreciate another facet of design; a facet that I have downplayed all these years – the function of design.

So the new theme’s concept and color combo only took me 5 minutes to gather. Even the prototyping stage on Photoshop took me less than 2 hours. I’ve just been fussing over typography and usability.

Hopefully, one day when I get skilled enough, I can combine both the art and function aspects of design to design masterpieces. But for the next theme, it’ll be all about the details.

Dear readers, what is your philosophy for web design? Which aspect of web design do you like best? What do you dislike? Do share links of your favorite designers and websites too!

Related posts:

1. Best WordPress Design Award
2. Nanyate?! Gets A 2009 Redesign