I’ve put together a set of 10 vector symbols for you to use in whatever you like. Commercial use is fine, but for my own curiosity, I’d appreciate it if you let me know where you’ve used them. Enjoy!

© Rob Barrett Design.

Given what my holidays have been like, I think this wallpaper I made this morning is a fitting tribute to the pastime I feel I’ve been sticking to most for the past couple of weeks… So, join me in raising a glass bottle to the next twelve months — here’s hoping it brings bigger and better things for all of us!

I’ve catered for the most common resolutions of my visitors, according to Google Analytics, but if I’ve missed out a lot of you, let me know and I’ll add more sizes.

© Rob Barrett Design.

Things have all been pretty busy since I got back, what with catching up on work, having friends and family visiting for my birthday celebrations (I turned 23 while I was in Fes) and starting to look for a job and a place to live for when I move to London in the summer, so I’m going to give a short round-up of things that have come to my attention.

Business Contract

I recently had a request for work from a local school here in Cardiff. I realised that I’ve never really used a contract in my work before, and that it was high time that I did. So I’ve been on Google searching around for contract templates, and have managed to put together one based upon the offerings on the following sites:

Zenful Creation’s Web Site Design Contract, and Creative Latitude’s Resources Downloads.

Macros

When working on projects, I generally have two or three different Excel spreadsheets open, and it all takes time to open Excel, then to navigate to each file, and then to open them, so I figured there must be a better way. After a quick search on ‘windows macros’, I found AutoHotKey, a free and simple, but powerful, macro programme for Windows. After setting up the appropriate script, all I have to do now is hold down the Windows key and press X, and Excel automatically loads up and opens all three of my main spreadsheets… much more productive!

RSS Feeds

I’ve really been getting into RSS feeds recently (at last). I use Google Reader, as it has a simple, user-friendly interface, it’s free, and it’s web-based (so I can access my feeds from anywhere).

Here’s five of the feeds I’ve been reading in the last few weeks (in no particular order):

1. PSDTuts — Photoshop Tutorials and Links (RSS feed)
2. Fresh Brushes on brusheezy.com! (RSS feed)
3. Logopond — Identity inspiration (RSS feed)
4. Blog.SpoonGraphics (RSS feed)
5. Smashing Magazine (RSS feed)

That’ll do for now. I’m off to spend the rest of the afternoon updating my CV and portfolio, ready to apply for some jobs in the capital. Wish me luck!

© Rob Barrett Design.

My blog no longer uses ExpressionEngine, so this code doesn’t apply to this site.

I love using ExpressionEngine for my site, but to be honest, the documentation around it can be pretty confusing at times.

For instance, I spent well over an hour just finding out how to include a list of relevant categories for each post. So, here’s a pared-down version of what I’m using on my blog homepage. Take what you want of it, play around with it, and hopefully save yourself some searching around.

This code calls up the first 15 posts (ordered by descending date). It starts by displaying the post title as a link to the full post. It then checks to see if a summary has been written for the post. If so, it displays it; if not, the Word Limit Plus plug-in displays the first 100 words of the post, followed by a ‘Read more’ link.

The next section displays an information paragraph on each post, starting with the time and date of writing, a list of categories each post has been placed into, and (if any exist) a tally of how many comments each post has.

The final paginate section checks the number of posts. If there are more than 15 (or, in other words, more than will fill one page as specified above), then it displays links to go to further pages of entries.

{exp:weblog:entries weblog="my_weblog" orderby="date" sort="desc" limit="15"}
 
<p><a href="{title_permalink="site/post"}">{title}</a></p>
 
{if blog-summary}
{blog-summary}
{if:else}
{exp:word_limit_plus if_exceeds="100" stop_after="100" the_link="<a href='{title_permalink=site/post}'>Read the rest of this post&hellip;</a>"}
{blog-body}
{/exp:word_limit_plus}
{/if}
 
<p>Posted on {entry_date format='%j%S %F, %Y'} at {entry_date format='%g:%i%a'}<br />
Categories:{categories} <a href="{path=site/index}">{category_name}</a> {/categories}
{if allow_comments}{if comment_total > 0}&#8226; ({comment_total}) <a href="#">Comments</a>{/if}{/if}</p>
 
{/exp:weblog:entries}
 
{exp:weblog:entries weblog="my_weblog" orderby="date" sort="desc" limit="15"}
 
{paginate}
<span class="pagecount">Page {current_page} of {total_pages} pages</span>{pagination_links}
{/paginate}
 
{/exp:weblog:entries}

© Rob Barrett Design.

These textures are provided royalty-free for personal and commercial use. If you use any of these, all I ask is that in some way you will give me credit for it, ideally by linking back to my homepage.

Download the ZIP file (21MB)

© Rob Barrett Design.